The study of the state of the art in research and development projects (Part I)

In this first part, the author reflects on the importance of the type of project on the tasks and duration of the study of the state of the art, always from his personal experience in engineering projects.

Any research project must begin with a study phase in which all the researchers analyze what the situation of the research topic is before they intend to obtain results in the project. This initial phase is traditionally referred to as the "state of the art study". To me this denomination sounds a little "pompous", but it is the one usually used. To theorize, in a general way, about how this stage should be seems to me to be a difficult task, since this vital stage is going to be, surely, quite dependent on many factors. Here I only intend to present my opinion, which is still one of a university professor, one more of tens of thousands of us who carry out research work in Spain, making it compatible with teaching. In my particular case and as an engineer, my research projects and contracts have always been focused on technical fields (really, in a very particular field of this one). With this assertion I want to make it clear that my statements and opinions are going to be polarized by my personal experience in a very specific field of knowledge (engineering and technique) and that, therefore, they may not be applicable or dubious in others.

When considering the projects that we engineers face, I would clearly distinguish two types: Development projects (of a team, a product or a system) and research projects.

In the case of development projects, the project is usually presented as a research contract between the research group and a company. In these circumstances, it is normal for the company to approach the research group because it knows its competence in the subject around which the project is going to be developed, either because it has some kind of previous reference or because it has already had other projects previously with the group, and the experience has been positive. In this case, it is normal that the state of the art study stage of the project is relatively short. In many of these cases, the project will revolve around a topic well known to the research group, in which the company is willing to use economic resources because it trusts that these resources will produce an almost immediate return of benefits. In this type of project, the study of the state of the art to be carried out at the beginning of the project very often focuses on the exploration of new, more versatile or cheaper components for the equipment, product or system to be developed. It is about building something quite similar to what already exists, but better than what already exists because it incorporates new elements, with better characteristics (of course, these new elements have been the object of research at another time and in other circumstances, but now they are products in themselves). In this case, at the stage of the study of the state of the art it is necessary to go to the catalogues of the elements and components, rather than to the search in texts, in magazines and in specialised congresses. Of course, the websites of the manufacturers and suppliers of these elements and components are of paramount importance in our time.

Also the so-called "reverse engineering" can play an important role in these cases. Knowing in detail the equipment, products or systems that other companies are putting on the market is valuable information, which obviously these other companies will not supply and which can be attempted by "reverse engineering" their products. If it is deemed appropriate to resort to this practice, then it should be done in the state of the art study phase. The analysis of the results of this work should be very much taken into account at the end of the state of the art study phase, when relevant decisions are made on how to follow the project.

Research projects, in the most classical sense of the word, are approached in engineering in a similar way to scientific disciplines. Normally, in engineering we are referring to research on equipment, products or systems that did not exist previously or in which we want to make a substantial change in their characteristics and / or performance. These projects are also sometimes articulated in engineering as contracts with companies, usually with companies with great interest in broadening their horizons in fields traditionally little explored by them or in which, although well known by them, new possibilities or new approaches have arisen. They are companies with a cutting-edge technological base, which could be small, but in my personal experience in the technological "microfield" in which I move, they have always been large companies, in many cases multinationals, with highly qualified professionals, and who decide that some of the issues they consider interesting for their future will be investigated outside the company, always with sufficient confidentiality clauses.

On many occasions, the company follows a parallel and different line to that proposed to the research group, putting two groups of people to investigate in healthy competition to explore different solutions to the same problem. The study of the state of the art in these cases is very important and can be very long, being in itself a result much appreciated by the company. Its professionals, in many cases highly qualified and with great knowledge and practical vision, do not have the necessary time to be very conscientious in the study of the state of the art and they are going to base the way to follow on their part of the work to be done in the study of the state of the art carried out by the university research group that, as I said before, works in "healthy competition with them". Without a doubt, a good study of the state of the art is going to be very important for the company, not only in the context of the project, but also sometimes in its prospective for future research. Referring now to the places to go in search of information, I would cite in this case the international congresses very specialized and very relevant in the subject (of course, avoiding the congresses whose interest may lie in their place of celebration and in the meagre curricular improvement that they suppose) and the international specialized journals, knowing that what is published in them, although it is more refined, is always less recent information than that published in the congresses.

Today, all this information is easily accessible to researchers through the Internet. It is very important the work of some large international institutions, which act as professional associations and have a long tradition in the dissemination of technical information in a way affordable to virtually all researchers. In saying this, I am thinking of one of them, of special relevance in the world of electrical and electronic engineering (which is my field): the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, known by its acronym IEEE, which in this country we end up summarizing with the unmistakable name of "the I-E-cube". The different specialized societies of the IEEE sponsor congresses and magazines, always affordable from the economic point of view, which disseminate worldwide all the advances in the different thematic areas related to electrical and electronic engineering. Many institutions contract a kind of "flat rate" with the IEEE, so that all researchers in the institution have access to an enormous avalanche of publications in congresses and journals, from which crucial information can be obtained in the study stage of the state of the art of a project that is related to the broad scope of the IEEE.

In addition to research projects embodied in contracts with companies, engineers also work on publicly funded projects (regional, national or international) around engineering issues, but with a completely speculative character. In this case and although we do not have companies financing research, we are still talking about applied research, with a specific objective of improving a technology, a line of products or systems, etc., and we are not aiming to advance knowledge itself (which would be the field of scientific research). In these circumstances, I in turn would distinguish two specific cases, depending on the extent to which the project is a continuation of a line of work already consolidated in the research group or, on the contrary, means the beginning of a new one. In the first case, the study of the state of the art will be very similar to that previously described in the case of a research project (not a development project) financed by a contract with a company with capacity and interest in the research to be carried out; that is, a broad study based on the search for information in congresses and specialized journals.

On the contrary, starting a new line of research implies a different situation. It must surely be accepted that the results will take time to arrive (which should be admitted naturally by the people in charge of evaluating the results of the project) and that the study phase of the state of the art cannot be detached from a process of training, rather than just information. In the first phase, it will necessarily be necessary to resort to texts designed for training, more frequently than to publications intended to disseminate news and advances, such as the proceedings of congresses and specialist journals. If the subject also uses a different set of terminology, it is very important to clarify it as soon as possible. This is the issue on which we will begin the second part of these reflections.

Author: Francisco Javier Sebastián Zúñiga, is an Industrial Engineer from the Polytechnic University of Madrid and holds a PhD in Industrial Engineering from the University of Oviedo, where he has been Professor of Electronic Technology since 1992. Previously, he was Professor at both universities.

Most of Francisco Javier Sebastián Zúñiga's research curriculum focuses on activities related to the study and design of electronic power systems, including the development of new converter topologies for powering communications systems, avionics, information processing, battery charging and LED-based lighting. He has participated in 65 projects and contracts with companies and has published more than 300 articles in international journals and congresses and more than 130 in national journals and congresses. He has directed 18 doctoral theses. He is the inventor of 3 patents belonging to the company ALCATEL, a consequence of some of the research projects carried out for this firm. He was associate editor of the magazine "IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics" and Coordinator of the Area of Electrical, Electronic and Automatic Engineering at the National Agency of Evaluation and Prospective (ANEP) for four years. Since 2014 he has been director of the Mobility Chair at the University of Oviedo, financed by Thyssenkrupp.

Website: https://www.unioviedo.es/sebas/

Link to academic Google: http://scholar.google.es/citations?user=9OfZ03AAAAAJ&hl=es

.