The laws of technical systems evolution are the most general evolution

Evolution

Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...

 trends for technical systems discovered by TRIZ

TRIZ

TRIZ is "a problem-solving, analysis and forecasting tool derived from the study of patterns of invention in the global patent literature". It was developed by the Soviet inventor and science fiction author Genrich Altshuller and his colleagues, beginning in 1946...

 author G. S. Altshuller after reviewing thousands USSR invention authorship certificates and foreign patent

Patent

A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....

 abstracts.

Altshuller studied the way technical systems have been invented, developed and improved over time. He discovered several evolutionary trends that help engineers to anticipate improvements that are most likely to make it advantageous. Convergence to ideality is the most important of these laws. There are two concepts of ideality: ideality as a leading pathway of a technical system's evolution, and ideality as a synonym of "ideal final result", which is one of the basic TRIZ

TRIZ

TRIZ is "a problem-solving, analysis and forecasting tool derived from the study of patterns of invention in the global patent literature". It was developed by the Soviet inventor and science fiction author Genrich Altshuller and his colleagues, beginning in 1946...

 concepts.

History

Studying paths of evolution of technical systems has been a primary research method of
TRIZ since its inception. But until the 1970s the discovered recurrent patterns of evolution were not consolidated into a separate section of TRIZ and were scattered among other sections.
In the 1970s Altshuller consolidated them into a new section of TRIZ that he called "the laws of technical systems evolution". It included both previously discovered recurrent patterns of evolution and newly discovered ones. Studying "laws of evolution" became an independent
research topic in TRIZ. The following authors, besides Altshuller, contributed most to it: Yuri Khotimlyansky (studied patterns of energy conductivity in technical systems), Vladimir Asinovsky (proposed principles of correspondence of various components of technical systems), Yevgeny Karasik (co-authored with Altshuller the law of transition from a macro-level to a micro-level, introduced the notion of dual technical systems and studied the patterns of their evolution).

General information

In his pioneering work of 1975, Altshuller subdivided all laws of technical systems evolution into 3 categories:

• Statics
  Statics
  Statics is the branch of mechanics concerned with the analysis of loads on physical systems in static equilibrium, that is, in a state where the relative positions of subsystems do not vary over time, or where components and structures are at a constant velocity...
  
  – describes criteria of viability of newly created technical systems.
• Kinematics
  Kinematics
  Kinematics is the branch of classical mechanics that describes the motion of bodies and systems without consideration of the forces that cause the motion....
  
  – defines how technical systems evolve regardless of conditions.
• Dynamics
  System dynamics
  System dynamics is an approach to understanding the behaviour of complex systems over time. It deals with internal feedback loops and time delays that affect the behaviour of the entire system. What makes using system dynamics different from other approaches to studying complex systems is the use...
  
  – defines how technical systems evolve under specific conditions.

Static Laws

• The law of the completeness of the parts of the system

Any working system must have 4 parts: the engine, the transmission, the working unit (working organ) and the control element (organ of steering). The engine generates the needed energy, the transmission guides this energy to the working unit, which ensures contact with outside world (processed object), and the control element makes the system adaptable.

• The law of energy conductivity of the system

As every technical system is a transformer of energy, this energy should circulate freely and efficiently through its 4 main parts (engine, transmission, working element and control element). The transfer of energy can be by substance, field, or substance-field.

• The law of harmonizing the rhythms of parts of the system

The frequencies of vibration, or the periodicity of parts and movements of the system should be in synchronization with each other.

Kinematic laws

• Law of increasing the degree of ideality of the system

The ideality of a system is a qualitative ratio between all desirable benefits of the system and its cost or other harmful effects. When trying to decide how to improve a given invention, one naturally would attempt to increase ideality, either to increase beneficial features or else to decrease cost or reduce harmful effects. The ideal final result

Ideal Final Result

Ideal final result is a description of the best possible solution for the problem situation , regardless of the resources or constraints of the original problem...

would have all the benefits at zero cost. That cannot be achieved; the law states, however, that successive versions of a technical design usually increase ideality. Ideality = benefits/(cost + harm)

• The law of uneven development of parts of a system

A technical system encompasses different parts, which will evolve differently, leading to the new technical and physical contradictions.

• The law of transition to a super-system

When a system exhausts the possibilities of further significant improvement, it's included in a super-system as one of its parts. As a result new development of the system become possible.

Dynamic laws

• Transition from macro to micro level

The development of working organs proceeds at first on a macro and then a micro level. The transition from macro to micro level is one of the main (if not the main) tendency of the development of modern technical systems. Therefore in studying the solution of inventive problems, special attention should be paid to examining the "macro to micro transition" and the physical effects which have brought this transition about.

• Increasing the S-Field involvement

Non-S-field systems evolve to S-field systems. Within the class of S-field systems, the fields evolve from mechanical fields to electro-magnetic fields. The dispersion of substances in the S-fields increases. The number of links in the F-fields increases, and the responsiveness of the whole system tends to increase.