Behavioral Design Method Based on Synthesized Evaluation Functions

The only existing method of behavioral design is to think behaviors in designers’ mind. Even though an artist can think out some behavioral patterns, he or she can not easily convey them to the programmer due to difficulty in expressing such behaviors. Therefore, effective methods for designing behaviors are requested. In this study, the authors propose a method of designing behavior and establish a design system with the method, which cannot only help a user present the behavioral pattern through an interface with a computer, but can also expand the range of possibility of creative behaviors from the interface with the computer. Both the programmer and the artist can benefit from the design system. In the design system, behaviors are created by operating behavioral criteria through computer calculations. For the purpose of operating these behavioral criteria through computer calculations, we regard them as evaluation functions in mathematical forms. The characteristics of the method in this study lie in the process of operating the evaluation functions that evaluate behaviors and creating novel behaviors with the evaluation functions, and not in the process of directly programming behaviors depending on the programmer’s personal experience. As demonstration, the design system was used to design various robotic behaviors in this study. 10 students participated in the experiments including 5 design students and 5 engineering students. The participants were given tasks to design behaviors of pitching a base ball. The experiments results showed that the design system could not only help the design students produce interesting behavioral patterns, but could also help the engineering students expand the range of their creativities.