Berlin 2012 – scientific programme

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SOE: Fachverband Physik sozio-ökonomischer Systeme

SOE 15: Poster Session

SOE 15.7: Poster

Wednesday, March 28, 2012, 16:50–17:50, Poster F

Coping with uncertainty in future market evolution of competing technologies — •Patrick Plötz — Fraunhofer-Institut für System- und Innovationsforschung ISI, Breslauer Straße 48, 76139 Karlsruhe

The diffusion of innovations and prediction of future market evolution are important processes and the corresponding models have applications in many fields. The logistic equation is one of most important models in this context. Extensions of this approach as the Lotka-Volterra model have been developed to include the effect of mutual influences between innovations such as competition. However, many of the parameters entering this description are uncertain, difficult to estimate or simply unknown, particularly at early stages of the market diffusion. Here, a systematic way to study the effect of uncertain or unknown parameters on the future diffusion of interacting innovations is proposed. The input required is a general qualitative understanding of the system: is the mutual influence positive or negative and does it apply symmetrically to either technology? The methodology is developed in detail and applied the case of three types of upcoming electric vehicle propulsion technologies. The relation to Monte Carlo methods and the general use of random matrices in physics are discussed. The approach can easily be generalised to include other initial conditions, more technologies or other technological areas to find stable results for future market evolution independent of specific parameters.