AC 2011-741: A PORTABILITY RUBRIC APPLIED TO THE REDESIGN OF A SOLAR POWER GENERATION SYSTEM

The portability of a system is a crucial design parameter for many products. In particular, for products where mobility is a critical customer need, portability is paramount. This is often the case for example, for products entering into service with the U.S. Military. A concise rubric for measuring a system’s portability can be a critical asset when designing or redesigning a mobile system or when comparing two systems where mobility is important. Unfortunately, such a rubric does not exist. The development and implementation of such a rubric is the focus of this research. Note that this rubric could be used across a wide variety of student design projects and, as such, has wide applicability for enhancing engineering design projects. The portability rubric introduced is designed to allow engineers to analyze systems being designed or systems that already exist. In either context, the rubric is used to quantify how portable a system is. The 18 metrics that make up the rubric combine to cover the key components that constitute a system’s portability. The rubric is tested using a portable solar array system and a diesel generator set as a comparison datum. The rubric for the power generation systems is a smaller subset of the original 18 metrics that target the key components of power systems. Once the rubric is validated, it is used to re-design a current portable solar photovoltaic power system. Suggestions are made to re-design the system and focus on the areas of concern that were highlighted using the portability rubric, which include weight and size dimensions. As this research was conducted primarily by an undergraduate student, but working in concert with a graduate student and two professors, the educational benefits of such a structure are also enumerated.