Integrated innovation of smart materials and product design from the perspective of design intelligence

Materials are the physical basis and carrier of product design, and the selection of materials is an important part of product design. With the continuous exploration of materials, smart materials have become a hot topic in science and technology innovation. This study uses the winning entries of industrial design awards in the past five years as the data source, and 54 design entries using smart materials for innovative design were obtained after retrieval. The current status of the application of smart materials in product design has been summarised through classification analysis, case analysis and comparative analysis. It is found that the integrated innovation of smart materials and product design is still relatively simple. There is still a lot of space for the development of the application of smart materials in product design. In terms of the existing ways of integration of smart materials and product design, this study proposes that the future integration of product design and smart materials can be innovated from biology, ecology, sensing and computing perspectives through methods such as bionic design, sustainable design, personalised design and parametric design. This study provides a reference for the application of smart materials and new creative expressions in future product design and proposes a new trend for the integration of smart materials and product design in the future.