In product design, a decomposition of the overall product function into a set of smaller, interacting functions is usually considered a crucial first step for any computer-supported design tool. Here, we propose a new approach for the decomposition of functions especially suited for later solutions based on Artificial Intelligence. The presented approach defines the decomposition problem in terms of a planning problem--a well established field in Artificial Intelligence. For the planning problem, logic-based solvers can be used to find solutions that compute a useful function structure for the design process. Well-known function libraries from engineering are used as atomic planning steps. The algorithms are evaluated using two different application examples to ensure the transferability of a general function decomposition.

翻译：在产品设计中，将产品整体功能分解为一系列更小且相互作用的子功能，通常被视为任何计算机辅助设计工具至关重要的第一步。本文提出了一种特别适合后续基于人工智能解决方案的功能分解新方法。该方法将功能分解问题定义为规划问题——这是人工智能领域中一个成熟的研究方向。针对该规划问题，可采用基于逻辑的求解器来寻找解，从而计算出适用于设计过程的有用功能结构。工程领域已知的功能库被用作原子规划步骤。通过两个不同的应用实例对所提算法进行评估，以确保通用功能分解的可迁移性。