KDI: Networked Engineering

A Joint Research Initiative ofCMU-Drexel-USC

William C. Regli

Assistant Professor and Director

Geometric and Intelligent Computing Laboratory

Department of Mathematics and Computer Science

Drexel University

http://gicl.mcs.drexel.edu

KDI:NE Project Goals

To develop, integrate and evaluate information systems for distributed and collaborative design and manufacturing.

Project Overview

• NSF Grant: CISE/IIS-9873005 Drexel University

• Program: NSF Knowledge and DistributedIntelligence (KDI) Initiative

• Amount: $1.2M• Duration: October 1998 -- October 2001

One of 40 projects selected in 1998 (of 697 proposed)

Principal Investigators

• Carnegie Mellon University– Pradeep Khosla– Ramayya Krishnan

• University of Southern California– Berok Khoshnevis – Stephen Lu

• Drexel University– Thomas Hewett– William Regli

Industry and Gov’t Partners

• AT&T Labs, Internet Platforms• National Institute of

Standards and Technology• Structural Dynamics

Research Corporation (SDRC)• Delaware Valley Industrial

Resource Center (DVIRC)• Bridgeport Machine Tools• Ford Motor Company

KDI: Networked Engineering

• Communication of Information– within an office– across virtual organizations– to suppliers and customers

• Access to Services– human expertise– software agents

• Collaboration & Negotiation– among different disciplines and departments

InformationInformation

ServicesServices

CollaborationCollaboration

KDI:NE Research Objectives

• Design Repositories– Engineering knowledge-bases to leverage legacy knowledge

• Composable Simulation– CAD enhanced with engineering analysis and behavior models

• Collaborative Negotiation– Conflict management strategies for design

• Usability Evaluation– Assess computational support for collaborative design

• Networked Engineering Studios– Integrate Internet, collaboration, and CAD tools

Design Repositories

Goals:Record, archive and manage design information as it is created during distributed design activities.

Approach:– Message model for distributed design– Process archival methodologies to populate design knowledge-bases– Retrieval strategies for design knowledge-bases

Impact:– Enables variational design– Access and reuse of legacy data and information– Platform for networked collaboration on and knowledge sharing about design

problems

Related Project: NSF CAREER Award CISE/IIS-9733545

Repository Scenario

)θF(θG(θθθ,VθθM ,))()( s

Engineering Digital Libraries

… contain CAD models, assemblies, plans, revisions, S-B-F models, project information and workflows, design rationale...

Research Objectives

• Integrated engineering knowledge-bases and engineering digital libraries

• Intelligent decision support tools for design

• Techniques to leverage legacy knowledge

Current Results and Accomplishments:

• Graph-based structures for knowledge modeling

• Geometric search algorithms

• Collaborative/Conceptual interfaces

• Internet-Based Design Repository

National Design Repository

http://www.parts.nist.gov

http://repos.mcs.drexel.edu

• Enables national and international participation

• Links in related resources

• To be coupled with intelligent search

and retrieve tools

Involved Drexel/GICLResearch Personnel

• Dr. William C. Regli (MCS)• Dr. Thomas Hewett (PSA)• Dr. Wei Sun (Mech. Eng.)• Dr. Jon Sevy (GICL Asoc. Dir.)• Mr. Gaylord Holder• GRAs

– Vincent Cicirello (MS, 1999)– Xiaochun Hu (PhD)– Max Peysakhov (MS, 2000)– Xiaoli Qin (MS, 1999)– Vera Zaychik (MS, 2000)

• NSF REUs– Lisa Anthony– Dmitry Genzel – J. Elvis John– David McWherter– Yuriy Shapirshteyn– Joshua Wharton

• Part-Time & Workstudy– Binh Le– Victoria Charles

Current Status

• Deploying Repository site• Initial implementation of

– Conceptual query interface– Structure matcher

• Data acquisition – CAD data (w/ SDRC, PTC, NIST)– Process/Assembly Plans (w/ Bridgeport and CMU)

• Integrated with fabrication services– GICL’s Bridgeport 4-axis machining center

Future Work

• Integrate Repository with K-base system

• Approximation algorithms for

– structure matching

– distance measurement

• Enhanced design graph representation

• Experimentation and testing of conceptual design/query interface

• Adaptable query interface for Internet agents

• Integrated cost estimation, planning, and manufacturing network services

Composable SimulationGoals:

Create simulations of mechatronic systems by composing mechanical CAD models, electrical models and information technology.

Approach:– Automatically create product-level simulations– CAD enhanced with analysis and behavior models– Hierarchical distributed simulation architecture– CORBA-based implementation

Impact:– Allow reuse of simulation models– Significantly reduce the time to build simulators– Increase fidelity of simulations

Scenario: Conceptual Design...

Pitch Motor

MechanicalSystem

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Yaw Motor

Reference

Reference

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ControlSignal

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… to Model SimulationDesign concept CAD and

Virtual prototyping

Model synthesis

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Proto

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Pitch motor

Control

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ComponentModels

ComponentModels

Simulation softwarearchitecture

Simulation softwarearchitecture

SimulationprocessesSimulationprocesses

InformationAgents

InformationAgents

Linpack

Odepack

Matlab

Dymola

ACIS

ConceptualDesign

ConceptualDesign

System Overview

Novel Features

• Creation of simulation software by combining individual simulation processes

• Inclusion of information agents in simulation process

• Provision of distributed environment

• Automatic model refinement

Component Models

• Object-Oriented Modeling Paradigm – reuse of models

• Design Repository used to select CAD components– incorporates ADAMS or DADS

• Information Agents– control system algorithms– environment definition

Software Architecture• Analyze conceptual graph to create

simulation processes– distributed objects– retrieve CAD information via ACIS

• Build simulator architecture– synchronization mechanisms– communication protocols

• Execute simulation

Simulation Output

Collaborative Negotiation

Goal:Develop systematic methods to establish optimal strategies to guide design team interactions and to manage design conflicts raised from these interactions.

• Approach:– Game-theoretic modeling of collaborative design activities– Establishment of conflict management strategies for mechatronic design

problems

• Impact:– Theoretical foundations for new software tools to support collaboration and

negotiation activities– Techniques for trade-off analysis in mechatronic systems design

• Related Projects:– DARPA/CMU CODES– CMU DecisionNet

Outline• The problem context

– enterprise-wide decision support for military logistics planning

• The approach– use an e-commerce metaphor to create a virtual repository

of decision support resources

• The research challenges– metadata (what kinds, representation..)– the search and discovery problem

Overview of DecisionNet• Architecture

– Providers/developers of decision support objects

• register with broker

• provide metadata

– Broker(s)

• compiles metadata into a catalog

• supports search to respond to consumer queries with varying degrees sophistication

• returns executable plans (an ordered collection of services)

– Users

• use broker to search and retrieve resources/computational plans

• use broker to execute resources to solve problem

• computational objects in the repository

Networked Engineering Studios

Goal:Deploy testbed of Design Studios that integrate Internet technologies and collaboration/multimedia tools with proactive CAD systems and inter-networked engineering and fabrication services.

• Approach:– Leverage vBNS, COTS software and strong industry collaboration

– Merge collaborative work tools with tools for design, manufacturing, negotiation and Product Data Management (PDM)

• Impact:– Interdisciplinary learning/work environment: CS/EE/ME/Psyc/CE/IE/HCI

– New classroom for industry

– Platform for evaluation

Initial Sites

vBNS Logical Network MapLast Updated 2/1/99

NOTE: Lines between institutions and aggregation points or NAPs represent the configured bandwidth of their connection to the vBNS.The bandwidth of the actual circuits may be greater than shown.

75 Operational Connections19 Planned Connections

MIT

13.8 Mbps

Wayne State

Wisconsin @

Milwaukee

Purdue

UMass

Chicago

Los Angeles

Boston

Texas

Cal PolyPomona

Cal State San Bernardino

New York City

Perryman, MD

Columbia

NYU

George Washington

Georgetown

SDSU

HoustonCalREN-2South

Cleveland

ESnet

iDREN

ESnet

DREN

NREN

ESnet

DRENSREN

APAN35 Mbps

CA*Net II

DREN

NREN

iDREN

ESnet

DREN

NI

NREN

FNAL ANL

San Francisco

Seattle

PNW

Washington @St. Louis

Missouri

MREN/STARTAP

CalREN-2North

NI

Denver

NASAAMES

MAX

MFSDC NAP

SprintNY NAP

SoX

Kentucky

Atlanta

Wake Forest

Penn State

UIUC

Yale

Boston U

Brown

Harvard

Minnesota

ChicagoUIC

Wisconsin @Madison

Northwestern

Iowa

Iowa State

UC Boulder

UtahNCAR

Washington

Ohio State

PSC

NCSA

Oregon State

UC Berkeley

Stanford

UC Davis

UCSF

UCSC

Arizona

UCSD

CalTech

UC Irvine

UC Riverside

UCSBUSC

USC ISI

CMU

Rutgers

Highway 1

UMD

Johns Hopkins

UMBC

VA Tech

UVAODU

Vanderbilt

Duke

NC State

NCSC

UNCUT Austin

Rice

Baylor C.of Medicine

Houston TAMU

IB&T @ Houston

Cornell

Princeton

Alabama @Birmingham

SDSC

MiamiFSU

Indiana

UCLA

Michigan

Notre Dame

GA Tech

MCI Reston

GA State

Michigan State

Merit

UPenn

UNM

Florida

Central Florida

Rochester

NYSERNETSyracuse

Rensselaer

SUNY Buffalo

Washington DC

NIH

MCI - vBNS POP

vBNS Approved Institution

Planned vBNS Approved Institution

vBNS Partner Institution

Network of vBNSPartner Institutions

Planned Network of vBNS Partner Institutions

Aggregation Point

Planned Aggregation Point

DS3

OC3

OC12

UNHDartmouth

Drexel

1998

Evaluation & Human FactorsGoal:

Work with practicing engineers and engineering educators to improve support for design and to understand performance of designers in distributed and collaborative design environments.

Approach:

• Assess computing system support for design and collaborative design through empirical examination of interaction effects among:– Hardware and Software characteristics

– Identifiable sets of users

• Evaluation as part of computing system design process:– Provides feedback to designers

– Enables users to contribute tool and system design ideas

– Forces ongoing concern with goals and the criteria for meeting them

– Evaluation will happen

Impact

• Improved tools for engineering design and collaboration• Tools that designers will want to use • Assessment techniques

Collaborators:– DVIRC

– Drexel ME

– SDRC

– Bridgeport

– Ford

– NIST

Assembly Structures

CUP: Conceptual Understanding and Prototyping

• Functional requirements“Enable back-of-the-envelope sketching”– capture basic 3D assembly structure– part relationships– function characteristics– behavior characteristics

• Collaborative environment• Internet-Centric