Paper

{
  "raw_xml": "<entry>\n    <id>http://arxiv.org/abs/2603.20151v1</id>\n    <title>Design-OS: A Specification-Driven Framework for Engineering System Design with a Control-Systems Design Case</title>\n    <updated>2026-03-20T17:26:44Z</updated>\n    <link href='https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.20151v1' rel='alternate' type='text/html'/>\n    <link href='https://arxiv.org/pdf/2603.20151v1' rel='related' title='pdf' type='application/pdf'/>\n    <summary>Engineering system design -- whether mechatronic, control, or embedded -- often proceeds in an ad hoc manner, with requirements left implicit and traceability from intent to parameters largely absent. Existing specification-driven and systematic design methods mostly target software, and AI-assisted tools tend to enter the workflow at solution generation rather than at problem framing. Human--AI collaboration in the design of physical systems remains underexplored. This paper presents Design-OS, a lightweight, specification-driven workflow for engineering system design organized in five stages: concept definition, literature survey, conceptual design, requirements definition, and design definition. Specifications serve as the shared contract between human designers and AI agents; each stage produces structured artifacts that maintain traceability and support agent-augmented execution. We position Design-OS relative to requirements-driven design, systematic design frameworks, and AI-assisted design pipelines, and demonstrate it on a control systems design case using two rotary inverted pendulum platforms -- an open-source SimpleFOC reaction wheel and a commercial Quanser Furuta pendulum -- showing how the same specification-driven workflow accommodates fundamentally different implementations. A blank template and the full design-case artifacts are shared in a public repository to support reproducibility and reuse. The workflow makes the design process visible and auditable, and extends specification-driven orchestration of AI from software to physical engineering system design.</summary>\n    <category scheme='http://arxiv.org/schemas/atom' term='cs.CE'/>\n    <category scheme='http://arxiv.org/schemas/atom' term='cs.AI'/>\n    <category scheme='http://arxiv.org/schemas/atom' term='eess.SY'/>\n    <published>2026-03-20T17:26:44Z</published>\n    <arxiv:comment>2 figures, 11 pages, Submitted to ASME IDETC 2026 - DAC-09</arxiv:comment>\n    <arxiv:primary_category term='cs.CE'/>\n    <author>\n      <name>H. Sinan Bank</name>\n    </author>\n    <author>\n      <name>Daniel R. Herber</name>\n    </author>\n    <author>\n      <name>Thomas H. Bradley</name>\n    </author>\n  </entry>"
}