Departments Editorial CUTTING TOOLS
|
|
The laboratory-factory
In the laboratory, the researchers created a virtual-manufacturing environment that consisted of a milling machine, lathe, and water jet. The machine models ran on a generalized control system that included three-degrees-of-freedom movement, floating zero control, part-program load, and program run.
During tests, this virtual system calculated setup times and machining times. Researchers found that the VEDAM system provided as good an estimate of these times as a human expert.
With further work, VEDAM will reduce design time and manufacturing costs by enabling engineers to catch design flaws early in the manufacturing process.
Brave new world
Virtual reality lets you operate in a simulated world simply by wearing special data gloves and an imaging headset linked with a computer. This tool kit, being developed by Aesthetic Solutions Inc, Laguna Niguel, CA, not only makes virtual reality more accessible, but also broadens its appeal and promotes a wide variety of uses. With it you can easily develop important applications such as setting up and touring a manufacturing plant, meeting in cyberspace, or linking up with a web page that demonstrates a company's products.
This method can be easily fathomed by users without expertise in programming or 3D
graphics because it applies prefabricated components in a point-and-click, drag-
and-drop environment. For special-purpose applications, you can customize the software and
develop application-specific components. The software is flexible enough to assimilate 3D
CAD/CAM data, and you can interface it with relational and object databases. Aesthetic
Solutions is getting ready to introduce a line of products based on its technology.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD, (http://www.nist.gov) is putting together a consortium to spur prototyping. The goal is to develop virtual machine tools and inspection machines that behave just like their counterparts on the factory floor. In their work, partners in the consortium use NIST's National Advanced Manufacturing Testbed, a distributed research facility equipped with state-of-the-art computing and communications systems.
Real-time development
If you're interested in bringing together product data from several sources and then manipulating digital prototypes assembled from the data, you might try Engineering Animation, Ames, IA, (http://www.eai.com). It's available as a software module with the developer's 3D visualization and digital-prototyping software: VisMockUp and VisFly.
The software module lets you collaborate with everyone on your team in real-time on product development. Workers from design through manufacturing, sales, and technical support--whether they are in a central location or spread around the world--can simultaneously view and alter 3D models from a variety of CAD/CAM systems.
VisMockUp is a digital-prototyping software that combines 3D visualization and design-analysis functions. It lets you detect and eliminate design flaws early in the development cycle, and you can use it to analyze an entire assembly, including detecting interference fits and part collisions. VisFly lets you interact with complex CAD designs in real-time.
New equipment and technologies are growing more expensive while the grants researchers need to acquire them are diminishing. One solution: share equipment over a relatively inexpensive medium--the Internet.
Researchers in the Partnership for Research in Stereo Modeling (PRISM) project at Arizona State University in Tempe (http://www.asu.edu/cfa/isa/prism/prism.html) have hooked their rapid-prototyping machine to the Internet. Manufacturers send part data electronically, and the machine builds the part.
The PRISM laboratory specializes in 3D computer-aided design and rapid prototyping, and supports three areas of research: data acquisition--such as through 3D scanning--visualization and modeling, and rapid prototyping.
One of the current PRISM projects, Rapid Manufacturing by Integrated Rapid Forming and Spraying, focuses on the development of new rapid-prototyping techniques. The project will integrate rapid-prototyping and intelligent-materials processing, and will include a knowledge-based rapid-prototyping system, process models, process sensors, and an on-line control strategy.
The goal is an intelligent controller that will monitor production to make high-quality products consistently. Such a manufacturing process would be cost-effective and highly flexible for producing complex-shape short-run precision parts.
Dealing with data
Because manufacturing engineering often deals with complex 3D objects such as a prototype, data take up a large portion of the PRISM network's available bandwidth. One of PRISM's future goals is to find a way around the bandwidth dilemma and set up an interactive remote manufacturing site. The university seeks potential collaborators to help expand the PRISM project. NIST is building a user interface that permits you to apply a Web browser to remotely control a part's inspection. The NIST researchers are also examining advanced sensing systems and ways to integrate them into the inspection machine.
Real teleoperation requires a protocol for transmitting and sorting data over longer distances. Tools for Sensors, a manufacturer in Carmichael, CA, and the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, (http://www.cs.ualberta.ca) have joined forces to develop a software code that relays data from automated manufacturing equipment over the Internet. The newly developed software, Sensors in a Distributed Environment (SIDE) unites sensor and control software on one easy-to-use platform.
The Active Robotics Group at the University of Reading, Berkshire, England, (http://netrolab.cs.reading.ac.uk) is relying on the Internet to remotely control robotic equipment in its laboratory, including cameras, a mobile robot, and a robot manipulator. The goal is for users to experiment with remote control through a standard Net interface, like the World Wide Web.
Avoiding complexity
One of the hazards of Internet collaboration is the danger of communications technology becoming so complex as to hamper the collaboration itself. You'll do no good to unite a widely distributed group of engineers on a network if the technology inhibits them from working together efficiently.
Researchers at Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, (http://virtuoso.ie.psu.edu) are addressing this problem with their Virtual Collaborative Control project. The project began when the researchers sought to direct a large overhead robot during remote disposal of hazardous material. Now the researchers are applying the same techniques to speed up flexible manufacturing in a way that reduces setup time when a number of remote personnel develop a prototype over a computer network.
Just as with the hazardous-material project, the researchers are developing virtual tools that personnel would use to communicate with each other. The same tools would also command robots and other production machines.
This work has branched off into another area, that of recycling used computer and testing equipment. Most recently, the researchers began work on an Internet camera system that operates over the World Wide Web. Remote users will one day be able to link to a website and identify the equipment they want to purchase.
The Internet offers manufacturers the chance to overcome barriers to strategic success. Among these barriers are the geographic distance between partners and customers or the time and costs associated with traditional communication inside or outside the enterprise. Here are four examples of where the Internet can come in handy for the typical manufacturing organization:
- Communication with customers/distributors. Marketing, sales, distribution, and customer support all move faster when you and your associates have electronic access to forms and product information.
- Communications with suppliers/vendors. You can keep track of pricing, ordering, delivery, and inventory to stay ahead of the game.
- Collaborating with other organizations. On the Internet, you'll be able to investigate organizations and look into forming partnerships with companies that share your business interests.
- Learning from outsiders. On the Internet, you can quickly scour universities and government agencies for experts in any engineering area.
A good read
For Internet-savvy manufacturers, Richard G. Mathieu's Manufacturing and the Internet (Engineering and Management Press, Norcross, GA) takes an in-depth look at these specific issues of interest. Mathieu organized the book into sections by manufacturing topics, such as "Virtual Reality and Manufacturing," in which he discusses not only who is doing research in this area, but how the area is changing.
For instance, virtual reality became infinitely more practical for manufacturers when the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) came along. In the same way that HTTP, the Web's programming language, standardizes Web pages, VRML standardizes virtual reality so that such applications can run on the World Wide Web.
VRML 2
If you are interested in virtual manufacturing, don't miss out on this development. It involves an emerging Web standard, Virtual RealityModelingLanguage (VRML) version 2, which lets you build 3D components and worlds and lets you interact with them. VRML 2 is available with most of the primary World Wide Web browsers and with standalone browsers. A program is under way to develop specific test strategies and associated groups of tests, or test suites, that check the compliance of separate browsers with VRML specifications.
Unlike the first version of VRML, the new one gives you the ability to interact with the virtual environment. The modeling language lets you build the 3D components and environments via simple commands. To build a cone, for example, the VRML browser might let you simply specify the word "cone" and then name its radius and height.
Developers of interactive 3D graphics for the Web are increasingly incorporating the VRML 2 specification into their products. Most offerings of VRML 2 are in beta testing and are available to users for free trial demonstrations. The problem is, users are having difficulty deciding which VRML browser suits their particular application. There are variations from browser to browser in describing features such as texture, color, shape, and movement.
Manufacturing on the Internet is available from Technical Insights for $995 ($1070 outside the US). For information, call Peter Savage at 201-568-4744, ext 231, or fax him at 201-568-8247. The website is: http://www.insights.com/
This article was originally published in the
March 1998 issue of Metlfax. * Email the editor: jmckenna
Please Note: some pictures or diagrams are only
available through the printed media.
