Martin Hardwick (hardwick@rdrc.rpi.edu)
David L. Spooner (spoonerd@cs.rpi.edu)
Laboratory for Industrial Information Infrastructure
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Troy, New York 12180
Abstract:
This project is investigating how the information highway can be used
by engineering organizations that wish to collaborate on design and
manufacturing problems.
The project is conducting an experiment that uses the information highway
to support simulations of mechanical systems for multidisciplinary design
perspectives. The research to accomplish this task is seeking to advance
the state of the art in integration of engineering systems in wide area
networks such as the Internet. In addition, the research is seeking to
advance the states of the art in neutral database design for the integration
of engineering systems, and distributed control systems for the processing of
engineering changes.
The project is building a next generation environment for engineering
collaboration using the PDES/STEP standard for engineering data exchange,
the OMG CORBA standard for object service modeling, and Mosaic/HTML for
data presentation. In the first year, the environment will be tested
using a product model of the Hummer Vehicle. Product models of components
of the Hummer's suspension assembly will be re-built using different CAD
packages at the University of Iowa and RPI. The suspension will be
assembled over the Internet using PDES/STEP and simulated using Iowa's
simulation based design environment.
This work is being performed by the Laboratory of Industrial Information
Infrastructure of the New York State Center for Advanced Technology in
Robotics, Automation and Manufacturing, in collaboration with the
University of Iowa, Caterpillar Inc. and PDES, Inc.
References:
M. Hardwick, B. Downie, M. Kutcher and D. Spooner, "Using Delta Files to
Implement Concurrent Engineering: Results of an Experiment," IEEE Computer
Graphics and Applications, editor P. Wilson, IEEE Computer Society Press,
January 1995.
M. Hardwick, D. Spooner, B. Downie, M. Ferris, Z. Jiang,and T. DeWeese,
"A STEP Entity Control System for Concurrent Engineering," Proceedings of
the First International Conference on Concurrent Engineering: Research
and Applications, Pittsburgh, PA., August 1994.
URLs:
http://www.rdrc.rpi.edu
http://www.rdrc.rpi.edu/iita/status950125.html