Cloud Computing for Collaborative Advanced Manufacturing
What problem are you intending to solve?
Our app uses ultra fast, low latency networks to enable remote collaboration for advanced manufacturing. Manufacturers will be able to work together to build things they cannot build today
What is the technological approach, or development roadmap?
Advanced manufacturing collaborations for the future will involve the collaborative use of distributed resources and teams to function as virtual enterprises. In such collaborations,there is a need to be agile in responding to customer requirements. Our focus in this project is an important emerging manufacturing domain called “micro devices assembly”. Micro devices assembly holds the potential of revolutionizing the manufacturing of micron sized devices in a range of domains from semiconductor manufacturing to chemlab-on-a-chip products. Our past work has focused on the development of a cyber physical framework which will use distributed software and equipment linked through the Internet to assemble micro devices. A key step in this collaborative life cycle is the planning and simulation of assembly alternatives using Virtual Reality based engineering approaches. However, the high gigabit, low latency network to enable collaboration among distributed manufacturing and design partners using such Virtual Reality technology is not supported by current Internet networks. This problem needs to be addressed as its crucial for the future of agile collaborations in advanced manufacturing fields.
• Design / develop a framework for advanced collaborative manufacturing in the context of the rapid assembly of micro devices • Install distributed software modules related to following: assembly planning, path planning, 3D virtual reality based simulation and assembly • Design and demonstrate cloud based approach linking distributed resources between Oklahoma State University and Ohio State University
How will end users interact with it, and how will they benefit?
Using our approach, an end user can input a target micro assembly design to be assembled. They can access our framework from anywhere with Internet access. Our framework will enable remote users to assess feasibility using virtual reality environments and other collaborative resources residing on the cloud. The impact on the user’s advanced manufacturing capabilities will be enormous. Manufacturers will be able to work together to build things they cannot build today.
How will your app leverage the 1Gbps, sliceable and deeply programmable network?
The virtual reality based simulations require ultra fast and low or predictable latency networks for collaboration. This cannot be achieved using the existing network capabilities. Using the ultra high speed and deeply programmable GENI network, we plan to link distributed software and manufacturing equipment to demonstrate an advanced agile manufacturing approach in the domain of micro devices assembly.
Further application information
Will your work be beta-ready by the end of the Development Challenge?
Yes, our work will be beta-ready.
How much effort do you expect this work to take?
Earlier in spring 2012, Dr. Cecil worked with Dr. Prasad to explore the creation of a cloud based framework which used distributed software and equipment to plan, simulate and assemble physical micron sized parts. In this Mozilla project, we seek to build a prototype system to collect information on the data exchange among the distributed collaborative resources, using OnTime Measure and RICE (which has been developed by Dr. Prasad). The goal is to demonstrate the impact this will have on collaborative advanced manufacturing. We expect this to take between 4 to 6 months.
Do you need help?
No, but we are open to collaborating with other manufacturing partners.
If you can help let them know in the comments below.
Professor J. Cecil directs the interdisciplinary Center for Information Centric Engineering (CICE) at Oklahoma State University (Stillwater, OK). His work is broadly in an area termed as 'Information Centric Engineering' (ICE) which addresses 3 core facets in today IT oriented engineering context: modeling, simulation and exchange of information for collaborative distributed engineering. ICE can be viewed as a field which overlaps computer science and engineering. Cecil's pioneering work in ICE spans several fields including micro, nano assembly, space systems and bio medical engineering domains. His past projects include the design of a semantic web based framework for collaborative manufacturing and the design of advanced virtual reality based assembly simulation environments for small satellites. His past projects have been funded by NSF, Sandia National Laboratories, Los Alamos National Lab and the Air Force Research Laboratory. He is the author of eighty two papers and has served as on the program committee of various international conferences. He is the editor of a recently published book 'Virtual Engineering' which is a collection of chapters written by leading researchers in virtual engineering (he wrote the introductory chapter in this book as well). CICE web page is www.okstate.edu/cinbm
and team members
This team will be composed of Dr. J. Cecil (Oklahoma State University) and Dr. Prasad Calyam (Ohio State University) and one graduate student at each university. Professor J. Cecil’s interests are in cyber technologies and information centric engineering frameworks for engineering and biomedical applications. He recently explored the design of GENI based cloud computing approaches for distributed manufacturing with Dr. Prasad Calyam (Ohio State University) [Gunda 11]. His expertise includes the design of virtual reality simulation environments for engineering and biomedical applications. His past projects have been funded by NSF, Sandia National Laboratories, Los Alamos National Lab and the Air Force Research Laboratory; these projects include creation of advanced Virtual Reality based simulation environments and the development of innovative cyber infrastructure to link distributed resources for addressing process design issues in several domains (small satellite assembly, nano assembly, micro assembly and bio cell manipulation. He was the PI and principal organizer of the NSF Workshop on Information Centric Engineering held in Greece in 2011 [Cecil 11], which focused on identifying technology bottlenecks, assessing state of the art research and discussing emerging trends in cyber manufacturing and bio medical engineering including impact of next generation cloud computing on engineering and biomedical fields. Dr. Prasad Calyam is a researcher in the cyber infrastructure software development and networking research groups at the Ohio Supercomputer Center/OARnet, The Ohio State University. Dr. Calyam’s expertise includes Web Architectures, Network-based performance analysis technologies, Cloud Computing Next Generation Internet Protocols and GENI (Global Environments for Network Innovation). He is also an expert consultant for industry, academia and government agencies in the design, development and training of software systems comprising of advanced architectures and network-based performance analysis technologies. He is currently leading the development of the OnTimeMeasure-GENI platform for centralized and distributed measurement orchestration as part of a measurement service for GENI experiments (http://groups.geni.net/geni/wiki/OnTimeMeasure). He is also currently leading one of the GENI experiments that NSF recently funded (http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=1050225). These GENI experiments relate to Thin Client Performance Benchmarking based Resource Adaptation in Virtual Desktop Clouds.