Towards a Need-Satisfaction Oriented Computer Aided Design

In this paper, different approaches are presented in order to automatically estimate the relevance of design performances in terms of aglobaI satisfaction. The first part describes a functional needs expression approach: a bottom-up satisfaction model from lower-Ievel functions to the global satisfaction, taking into account data imprecision and uncertainty at each level. The second part introduces a virtual prototyping design platform, which consists in a primary simulation of some solution performances in order to propagate them through the functional model. Redesign, optimization and risk management capabilities can be imagined, since it is possible to measure the influence of the structural parameter choices over the measure of the global satisfaction and its uncertainty.