Panos Y. Papalambros - US grants

Nonlinear optimization (NLP) techniques often are used to aid in the decisions that must be made as a design progresses. Once the critical variables in a design have been specified, optimization can be used to find the best values for parameters of the design. To use nonlinear programming, the designer must often become well-versed in recognizing why a particular technique is not working and in selecting an appropriate alternative. This research is to develop an expert system using nonlinear programming techniques. This system will be based on knowledge acquired from designers-analysts and from the numerical calculations of the optimization programs. The expert system will operate at several levels--using rules that apply to the entire design space, that apply only under special circumstances, or only in one instance. The availability of such an expert system would free a designer from much of the tedium and frustration of working with optimization programs.

This program of research is aimed at gaining a general understanding of the design process, developing new forms of computer tools and methods for designers, and implementing and evaluating these tools in a realistic design environment. The research will be carried out by an interdisciplinary design team of faculty associated with the Exploratory Design Laboratory (EDL). The research will focus on three areas: 1) computer tools for aiding design problem formulation, 2) adaptation of analysis tools to design tools, and 3) methods and computer tools for rapid prototyping. The result of this research will be computer-based aids to designers in each of these three areas as well as a continuing improvement in understanding and implementation of modern design methods. These aids and methods will be tested in a structured graduate educational program. In the EDL, students have proven to be an excellent resource for trying out new ideas, for getting useful feedback, and for propagating successful ideas. Through the use of guides, software, and remote access to implementation servers, the research results will be rapidly disseminated into research and educational communities.

This research will consist of a rigorous systematic methodology for generating the initial topology or layout of structural members based on mathematical models and physical principles. The new method of homogenization provides a new and exciting approach for addressing rigorously how structural topologies may be optimized. This fundamental new capability offers a unified scheme for carrying concept evolution through detail layout design, using rigorous principles together with appropriate empirical knowledge, so that realistic, manufacturable shapes can be obtained.

A rigorous systematic methodology will be investigated for generating the initial topology or layout of structural members based on mathematical models and physical principles. The new method of homogenization provides a unique and exciting approach for addressing rigorously how structural topologies may be optimized. This fundamental new capability offers a unified scheme for carrying concept evolution through detail layout design, using rigorous principles together with appropriate empirical knowledge, so that realistic, manufacturable shapes can be obtained. The broad techniques and skills required are served by the diversity in the investigators team.

Kikuchi 9300326 Project MAXWELL aims at bringing together two research efforts under way at the University of Michigan (U-M) and at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in the area of discrete part design and manufacturing. The U-M team has developed a strategy for designing the form and material composition of structures and structural components based only on a description of loading conditions and packaging requirements. The CMU team has developed a method for free-form fabrication of parts from single or composite materials by thermal spray shape deposition. Under project MAXWELL, structural parts will be designed (both for form and material composition), fabricated, and tested in an integrated manner. This project is concerned primarily with the design phase of project MAXWELL. In particular, the previously developed, mathematically rigorous procedure for the concurrent design of material composition and topology of 2D structures to include 3D components. This involves two major tasks: (1) extending the 2D domain of the homogenization method to include the realization of novel mechanical parts that possess superior structural and thermo- mechanical properties, and satisfy downstream manufacturing requirements. The project address proof of concept through design, manufacture, and testing of actual parts.

9411715 Dutta This award will purchase a layered manufacturing machine which will be dedicated to support research in engineering. The equipment will be used for Project MAXWELL, a research project in the area of discrete part design and manufacturing. It aims at bringing together two of the latest developments, one in design and the other in manufacturing, for the realization of efficient structural and mechanical components. The practical goal of the project is the verification of a methodology for the design and fabrication of parts that are highly efficient in terms of reduced weight and increased structural performance. The project is based on the homogenization design technique for designing the shape and material composition of structures and structural components based only on a description of loading conditions and packaging requirements. Such designs often possess complex geometries and microstructures. A layered manufacturing machine for the fabrication of such parts will be acquired. Under project MAXWELL, structural parts will be designed (both for form and materials composition), fabricated, and tested in an integrated manner.

9974113
Volakis

The objective of this proposal is to develop and extend the application of the Homogenization Design Method (HDM) to conformal multilayered antenna array design with emphasis on adaptive/reconfigurable devices. We will achieve this by bringing together a team of researchers from electrical and mechanical engineering. The proposers from the mechanical engineering community have already played a key role in developing and transitioning design methodologies to the automotive industry where HDM was used to achieve optimal automobile designs subject to minimum weight and prespecified thermal and loading requirements. HDM is considered a breakthrough design methodology and its application has permeated all aspects of automobile manufacturing. Basically, HDM provided the capability to design materials with prespecified thermal and structural/mechanical properties, a long standing "dream" in applied mechanics. It was a breakthrough design methodology in mechanical design and had an immediate and significant impact on automobile design. Similarly, in electromagnetics and antenna design in particular, we do not expect that the proposed design technique will be an evolution to existing designs. Instead, the new designs may be of any possible shape and composition while still satisfying bandwidth, size, coupling, gain, pattern and other commonly used performance requirements. Reconfigurable aspects of the antenna can be readily considered as part of the design process.

The extension and impact of HDM to new application areas is expected to be equally effective. So far, this highly successful homogenization design method has not been considered for electromagnetic applications. Nevertheless, it certainly has the potential to generate designs for new high performance antennas by following a cell by cell and layer by layer design of the multilayered and multicell antenna structures. The introduction of HDM to electromagnetics (and antenna design in particular) is a timely endeavor for two reasons. First, antenna proliferation in all types of wireless systems and integration of antenna arrays into a single multifunction aperture present us with new challenges for antenna array design which maintain acceptable levels of performance in the presence of highly complex systems. The availability of fast and highly adaptable algorithms based on hybrid finite element method techniques is the second reason for pursuing practical design algorithms.

Although this proposal is primarily aimed at antenna design, its success will also impact designs for all other electromagnetic applications. It will also allow for the development of furore design algorithms which combines constraints from mechanical, electrical and other engineering specifications.

This grant provides funding for a interdisciplinary collaboration bringing together design and manufacturing experts with computer science experts to define a scalable information infrastructure to support product design in a multi-organization environment with limited but crucial trust and sharing in a cooperative context. To this end, this project will study the decomposition of a large design into smaller pieces that are worked on relatively independently; it will use and extend the XML internet standard to create a mechanism for "self-description" of an object-oriented design database structure so that each design group can independently choose to organize information in the most suitable form for its purpose, along with a schema description and access control meta-data in a standardized format; and it will develop tools to manage collaborative design in a diffuse distributed context, with shifting coalitions and topics of interest, using a generalized publish/subscribe model.

The end result of this project will be to create the basis upon which to build a comprehensive inter-enterprise design information management system. The results obtained from this research will reduce time-to-market and increase efficiencies in the design of complex products such as automobiles. It also has the potential to revolutionize enterprise resource management.

0124415 Saitou The goal of the proposed research is to develop a general method for designing products with embedded disassembly processes that can be invoked by "pressing a disassembly button". This will be achieved by developing a new class of reversible integral attachments (RIAs) that can be detached by the application of localized heat. Design methodologies will be developed that will facilitate: (1) the identification of the components to be recovered, and (2) the embedding of RIAs into the product to facilitate the most efficient access to the components of interest upon product disassembly. Specific research tasks include: (1) extension of existing approaches toward determining recovery targets to include environmental validation metrics with the intent of considering both environmental and financial factors during design for disassembly, (2) development of a design method for a new class of RIAs that can be detached by application of localized heat, based on the structural topology optimization algorithm, and (3) development of a systematic procedure to generate the design specifications (attachment location, engagement type, removal direction, heating spot location) for RIAs using computer aided design technology in order to realize the most efficient access to components, based on the overall product geometry and the desired disassembly sequence. ***

The objective of this collaborative Small Grant for Exploratory Research (SGER) is to explore the interrelationships between enterprise product planning and engineering product development and to formalize their coordination process using a multilevel optimization approach, including consideration of uncertainty. Design of artifacts has been successfully modeled previously using distributed multilevel mathematical optimization methodologies from the engineering perspective, but linking the business and engineering disciplines in the same framework is an emerging area. Integrating manufacturing-driven considerations is a high risk endeavor, since it requires sophisticated models that vary dramatically with the product and processes involved. Treatment of uncertainty (representation, quantification, and propagation) will pose an additional challenge in this research.

The proposed project is exploratory but will have a profound impact on the design of complex engineering systems across a range of industries and products. If successful, the proposed research will offer a rigorous but practical approach to the organizational and computational challenges in complex engineering system design. A deeper, fundamental understanding of the interaction between market and engineering modeling and decision making will be gained. The research will be integrated into courses at multiple institutions, sharing teaching materials, methods, and exemplars, and piloting new teaching directions in design education.

The overarching goal of this Materials Use: Science, Engineering and Society, MUSES project is to produce modeling tools and methods that can be used to analyze changes in materials flows that would result from policy instruments aimed at reducing GHG emissions from passenger cars and light trucks. This goal will be achieved by building and validating a set of linked models that account for producer and consumer behavioral responses to GHG reduction policies, and integrating these forecasted market responses into a novel framework for predictive life cycle and material flow analyses (LCA/MFA). Our major tasks will be: 1) to model vehicle design options and materials use for their costs and performance; 2) to evaluate the market penetration of these options by modeling their performance in the context of market-based and regulatory policy instruments, producer objectives, and consumer preferences; and, 3) to evaluate the consequences of market responses on global materials flows and life cycle emissions.
The proposed research exists at the interface between engineering design, applied economics, social research, public policy, and sustainable development. The scientific impact will derive from the formulation of techniques, methods, and models in each of these disciplines that will help us understand the relationships between technology policy, technology adoption, and unintended environmental and materials flows consequences. Scientific impact will also arise from how these tasks are holistically integrated into an interdisciplinary meta-system. The broader impact of this proposal will be derived in part from the construction of a computational environment that will allow analysts to optimize technology and policy decisions with respect to costs, market acceptance, materials flows, and environmental impacts. The educational impact of this proposal will be significant through the integration of this project with undergraduate and graduate courses and curricula at the University of Michigan and at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). We also include an educational component aimed at deaf and hard-of-hearing students through collaboration with the National Technical Institute for the Deaf located at RIT. The award is co-managed by the Division of Manufacturing Innovation (DMI) and the Division of Electrical and Communications Systems (ECS).

Abstract

Using optimality conditions, it is proposed to quantify the coupling between designing an artifact (i.e., the "plant") and designing its controller. For the first time, this quantification of coupling will be used to understand when the two problems can be solved sequentially (i.e., design the artifact first, then its controller) so as to simplify the design process (i.e., disciplinary decoupling, and reduced product development times via parallel design) and when they need to be solved simultaneously (i.e., combined design of the artifact and its controller) to arrive at superior performance. Again, for the first time, the quantification of this coupling will be used to investigate several important conjectures: (1) tightening performance specifications increases coupling; (2) controllability of the plant is related to coupling; (3) increased uncertainty increases coupling, and there exists a tri-lateral coupling between the artifact design, modeling and control problems. The results of the research will be applied to compelling applications, such as fuel cell vehicles and MEMS. The results of this research are expected to yield, not only a method for quantifying coupling between plant and controller design, but also to provide general methods and principles of design based upon the trade-off between convenience of decoupling versus best system performance achievable with a more complex co-design approach.
The synergistic integration of mechanical, electrical, electronic, computer, optical, and control disciplines what has become known as mechatronics characterizes the design of modern engineered systems. Mature technologies, such as automobiles, are gradually yet radically changing through increased controls in powertrain (e.g., controls for idle speed, air/fuel ratio, spark timing, exhaust gas recirculation, valve timing, cylinder displacement and automatic transmissions), vehicle dynamics (e.g., anti-lock braking and traction control, cruise control, four wheel steering, active suspensions, drive-by-wire) and active safety (e.g., airbags, electronic stability control, headway control). Effective and practical introduction of new energy technologies, such as fuel cells, depends critically on designs with proper control functions. Applications of breakthrough technologies, such as MEMS and biotechnologies, to real products may not be possible without a harmonious integration of the design and control functions. The term "co-design" (combined design) refers to the fact that the design of the "plant" (or "controlled system") in the controls jargon and of the "controller" must be done in a combined, integral manner. This project aims to provide an important theoretical foundation for such co-design: a quantification of the coupling between the design and control functionality based on optimizing the overall system performance. Successful results of this research will have widespread impact on the design of a variety of mechatronic systems (e.g., automotive controls, fuel cells, MEMS).

This grant provides funding to conduct a series of workshops on Interdisciplinary Design as an Instructional Discipline to be held over a 12 month period. Workshops will be held at the University of Michigan, Northwestern University, and in conjunction with the 2009 NSF CMII Grantees Conference and the 2009 ASME International Design Engineering Technical Conferences. These workshops will address issues related to supporting the emerging discipline of design through graduate education and interdisciplinary design research. Participants from a broad range of disciplines, including engineering, architecture, industrial design, visual arts, psychology, and business, among others, will be invited to attend.

Design is an integrative activity that spans many disciplines; however, our educational system often struggles to provide interdisciplinary design experiences for our undergraduate and graduate students and to recognize the significance of design research. Recently, new and innovative interdisciplinary graduate programs in design have arisen with strong ties to engineering yet structured to fully embrace and complement research from other disciplines. These graduate programs have the potential to influence the development of a new discipline of design that includes both education and research. Interdisciplinary education is a central factor in expanding and sustaining an American competitive advantage in today's global economy. Developing design as a broadly recognized and practiced instructional discipline is essential for maintaining leadership in the innovation of new products and systems. This series of workshops will bring together experts in the field of engineering design research and education and the larger design community to explore the challenges, successes, practices and future directions of interdisciplinary design graduate programs to gain insight into how to construct, grow, and sustain programs that prepare students for successful design innovation. If successful, this series of workshops will form the basis of new approaches to design education and research that fully embraces interdisciplinary collaborations within the current structure of academia.

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). The research objective of this award is to develop methods for innovation in science and engineering. The research investigates how designers use heuristics, or cognitive strategies, to identify specific solutions in the creative process, and how team collaboration may use multiple heuristics across team members as a means to generate robust designs---designs that meet user needs despite variability in consumer preferences over different consumers and changes in consumer preferences/needs over time. The goal of this research program is to understand the cognitive heuristics that support creative, innovative, and robust designs. A combination of laboratory experiments and field studies will be used to maximize control and improve generalization to real world settings. Deliverables include a new methodology for studying and identifying cognitive heuristics in design teams, software to teach and facilitate the creation of optimal and robust product designs, and tested recommendations for effective innovation in the context of multidisciplinary design teams.

If successful, the results of this research will lead to a new methodology for the creation of novel and quality designs in engineering, science and industry. By identifying the heuristics used by experts, and facilitating the use of successful cognitive heuristics by novices, we will increase creativity and innovation in design as seen in science and engineering. This will have direct consequences for industry in the development of new products. Another direct application of these research findings is improved instructional techniques in engineering design that foster creativity and innovation. These pedagogical techniques can transfer to other types of professional training (e.g., social sciences, humanities), industry and educational settings such as K-12 and higher education, thus providing new approaches to encouraging and instilling creativity and innovation in design across an array of instructional settings.

This research project will create a theoretical and computational infrastructure to design new technology using creativity from crowds and individuals in combination with machine learning. A crowd could be a collection of experts within an organization, a classroom of students, or a large number of people online. Earlier research used machine learning working with individual engineers to help with simple design problems. This research will extend the earlier work to more complex configuration design problems, and will add crowd sourcing. Design representations will be graphs instead of vectors, and the design space will not be defined ahead of time. Machine learning may prove to be an important improvement over design evolution methods, and will provide insight into which design features are important. Machine learning also generates a model of subjective human judgment and preference, leading to more efficient and perhaps more innovative design synthesis.

If successful, this research will provide a platform for new models of innovation with input from multiple stakeholders: A machine supported by crowd-sourced knowledge and real-time interaction with humans will be able to produce unique and creative structures that were beyond the imagination of the humans involved. This research will also result in algorithmic advances in inference, learning, and related optimization techniques in representation learning for structured data and interactive human-machine collaboration. It will also provide a mathematical framework for innovation in massive system design problems involving thousands of designers such as the design of a jet fighter. The technology developed will be possible to implement in a variety of environments from complex engineering system design decisions to ideas for new products on commercial sites. In an educational context, this research, if successful, will allow students and teachers to experiment with design tools, individually, as part of a classroom experience, or as a national endeavor to both learn and possibly to generate new design ideas collectively.