The Evaluation Index System of Technology Maturity: Taking Hybrid Electric Vehicle as an Example

Abstract

Technology maturity, as an important indicator to measure development state and future trends of technology, can effectively control the risk of technology research and application. It is widely used in technology prediction of national defence, hightech and strategic emerging industries. Based on a comprehensive review of the existing evaluation method and application research of technology maturity, a multi dimension evaluation model is proposed, including the proportion of papers, patents and references, the density and efficiency of patent network, a total of ten indicators, which overcomes the defect of single index. And taking the hybrid electric vehicle as an example, the calculated results show that, the hybrid electric vehicle technology has been mature in 2003, and entered into a new boom period after 2009, because of the new breakthroughs in scientific research.Index Terms -technology maturity; evaluation index system; hybrid electric vehicle Literature review of technology maturityIn abroad, the research of the technology maturity has begun long time ago, the United States is the first to study and analysis this theory [1] . Domestic scholars have researched this theory since the 1990 s. Overall, the existing researches on technical maturity can be classified into the following several direction. Based on the TRL technical maturity level evaluation researchIn the 1970s, NASA put forward the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) to divide the technical maturity into nine grades as the initially standard level to evaluate the maturity of the new technology. This is the first evaluation metrics of technical maturity. Mankins first tried to use TRL to establish the difficulty index and the methodology of maturity [2] . Mr. William in the research on the basis of research of NASA's TRL invented the product technical maturity calculator [3] . In domestic, Lan Yuanpei and Guan Zhidong based on the TRL method classified the maturity level of aviation composite technology [4] . Wang Gang, Chen Xiang dong and Niu Xin made the research on the coordination mechanism of aerospace products R&D project based on TRL. This system provides reference for aerospace enterprise to build normative R&D mechanism and the corresponding technical maturity management mechanism [5] . Based on the theory of TRIZ technical maturity prediction researchThe professor G. S. Altshuller of former Soviet union found that the change trend of the number of patents related to product technology development stage, and it is concluded that there is a corresponding relationship between invention of the product quantity, level of invention, performance and profitability and s-shaped curve of technology life cycle, thus it is concluded that four standard curve [6] . Kow Alick called these four standard curves The Four Relationship Curves Operator (FRCO) [7] . Domestic scholars Li Zhiguang and Tan Runhua applied the S-curve of technology maturity prediction method of TRIZ theory to the liquid crystal display technology for the first time [8]...