Mastering complexity in robot design

This paper describes a general procedure for the requirement compliant design of robots and how design knowledge can be captured and correlated with the stakeholder demands. The key part of the method is to make an inventory of the stakeholder demands. We have created a structured list of demands for toy and educational robots based on a survey of product currently on the market. With this list it is possible to associate robot structures, functions and processes to the various demands. Thus the designer can determine which demands relate to which structure functions and processes and vice versa what requirements are affected by a given structure, function or process.