Oklahoma Center for Integrated Design and Manufacturing (OCIDM)
In May of 1989, the Oklahoma Center for Integrated Design and Manufacturing (OCIDM) was one of three Centers of Excellence selected for funding by the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology (OCAST). Including both State and non-State resources, OCIDM has seen funding at more than $13 million since that time to support high quality research and development projects. OCIDM is based at OSU, but it is a cooperative effort involving key faculty members from the University of Oklahoma and the University of Tulsa. Numerous partnerships have been established with other universities, government laboratories, and industrial firms inside and outside of Oklahoma. OCIDM is focusing its research efforts in three complementary areas of strategic importance to Oklahoma and the nation: design, manufacturing, and system integration. Research target areas within design, manufacturing, and system integration include Computer-Aided Design and Engineering, Manufacturing Processes and Materials, Web Handling, Computer Integrated Manufacturing, and Intelligent Systems. Individual project reports are included elsewhere in this section.
Sponsors: The Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology in cooperation with The National Science Foundation, The Noble Foundation, and industrial and other foundation sponsors
PIs: Karl N. Reid, James Henderson, Lawrence L. Hoberock, and numerous faculty members indicated below
Creative and Conceptual Design
The general-purpose computer-aided design tools in use today perform two primary functions: analysis and documentation of a nearly completed design. These tools offer no assistance in the creative design process; in all likelihood, they impede or totally eliminate creative thinking while they are being used. There are no general purpose preliminary design tools. The preliminary design tools that do exist typically cover very narrow areas of the overall design process. Industrial experience has shown that a significant portion of the total production costs are committed because of decisions made at the preliminary design stage. There is a glaring need for powerful, general-purpose preliminary design tools that enhance the creative design process and facilitate the careful consideration of multiple design alternatives very early in the design process. It is the intent of this research to study the process of Creative and Conceptual Engineering Design, to identify the activities and thought processes used by successful creative people, and to design and implement software for Computer-Aided Preliminary Design. This project will generate three significant results: a set of concepts for using the computer to assist in the creative design process (These concepts will address both user interface and design analysis and evaluation issues.); software to demonstrate "Proof of Concept"; and evaluation of these concepts by design engineers from industry, engineering design consultants, university faculty, and graduate and undergraduate engineering students.
Sponsors: OCIDM and Seagate Technologies, Incorporated
PI: Ron Delahoussaye (Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering)
RAs: Taecheol Kim, Xiang Hong, Cai Pengfei, Venkatesh Mathanna, Gaddam Sudheer, and Atul Deosthali
Robotics and Machine Vision for Automatic Dish Handling
It is the intent of this research to increase the speed and accuracy of candidate robotic systems for lightweight objects by improving part scheduling operations, improving vision system speed and robustness, finding new techniques for exacting inspection of parts, and introducing robotic handling to new niche market areas. Researchers have identified a target application to help identify and solve specific problems, namely the fast loading, unloading, sorting, and inspection of dishes and silverware in an automatic flight-type industrial dishwasher. Specific accomplishments include completing the material handling, gripper system, robot control, and vision system and integrating these into a working first-prototype demonstration. Proof of concept has been demonstrated, but it was found that the vision sorting and inspection system are at present insufficiently robust to stand the test of a commercial installation. Accordingly, work has concentrated on finding a more robust and accurate method for compensating for power fluctuations, lighting intensity changes, and camera sensitivity drift. Investigators have also concentrated on a more accurate and reliable means to sort and inspect dishes. Candidate systems for both of these improvements were developed using fuzzy logic theory, and work remains to complete these refinements and incorporate them into the system. Researchers believe the fuzzy logic approach may have wide appeal in other machine vision inspection applications due to its ability to robustly handle a wide variety of uncertain vision system environmental fluctuations.
Sponsors: OCIDM, St. Francis Hospital, Vartec, Adept Technologies, and the University of Tulsa
PI: Lawrence L. Hoberock (Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering)
RAs: Jung-Tai Chen, Anthony Johnson, Baoshan Chen, Glen Painter, Sachiko Hashimoto, and Duli Hong
Modulated Impedance Control for Intelligent Robots
This project is concerned with the development of a hybrid robot control system based on modulated impedance control for safe operation in unstructured environments and fuzzy logic based supervisor for impedance modulation according to the task to be executed. Objectives this year, after redirecting the short term objectives, were to start implementing modules that would allow the hardware to both perform modulated impedance control at supervisory level and perform telerobotics (i.e., have a human operator as part of the loop to executive impedance control). During the last year, a simple passive planar two link mechanism was developed to be used as an input device so that the SCARA robot could be used in the telerobotics mode. The development was successfully concluded and available for demonstration. In addition, a simple trajectory controller based on decoupling matrix and P-D control was developed and available for use in the supervisory impedance control.
In many manufacturing operations, considerable effort and cost is devoted to "finishing" the rough edges and surface of manufactured parts before they are sold or used for assembly. In a second project, we seek to develop automatic robot control techniques to handle many finishing tasks automatically, thus reducing the finishing cost. Development of suitable control strategies centers on the simultaneous handling of force and motion control of a robot end effector carrying appropriate finishing tools. Current efforts are directed toward adaptive control strategies to substantially improve control performance over existing techniques such as hybrid force/motion control and impedance control. The research involves development of new control techniques, high fidelity simulation of controlled robot motions, and prototype development and implementation using existing robot test beds.
Sponsor: OCIDM
PIs: Eduardo Misawa and Lawrence L. Hoberock (Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering)
RAs: Charles Nesser, Doug Harriman, and Philippe Doffay
Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) Integration Engineering
This multi-university project is directed toward the advancement of a science base for integration engineering. Specifically, conceptual and software application advancements are being pursed in the areas of integrated product design, process planning, plant layout, and production management. The OSU effort is primarily concerned with coordinating software implementation issues.
Sponsor: OCIDM
PIs: David Pratt and Manjunath Kamath (Industrial Engineering and Management)
RAs: Shankar Sivaramakrishnan and Ram Sreenivasan
Automated Plant Layout
The focus of this multi-university project is the incorporation of recent research results in the area of automated plant layout into the advanced modeling environment under development in the Center for Computer Integrated Manufacturing. The OSU effort is primarily concerned with coordinating software implementation of specific advancements in the areas of integrated aisle design, door location, and material handling system design.
Sponsor: OCIDM
PIs: David Pratt and Manjunath Kamath (Industrial Engineering and Management)
RA: Dursun Delen
Modeling Manufacturing Systems
Modeling, analysis, and optimization are critical activities in the planning, design, implementation, reconfiguration, and day-to-day operations of a complex manufacturing system. Discrete-event simulation and queuing networks are tools that are typically used for systems analysis. Due to the lack of a common modeling framework, the current practice is to create models tailored to specific techniques and specific problems. The resulting models and solutions tend to be single purpose, throw-away efforts. The availability of a common modeling framework would enable the creation of multipurpose, reusable models. In addition to greatly improving the efficiency of the modeling activity, this would also lead to better utilization and maintenance of models within an operating environment. The purpose of this project is to contribute to the development of a science base for the modeling of complex, discrete-event systems. Using object-oriented programming, a highly reusable, multiple tool modeling environment is being developed for the analysis and design of advanced manufacturing systems.
Sponsor: OCIDM
PIs: David Pratt and Manjunath Kamath (Industrial Engineering and Management)
RAs: Dursun Delen, Shankar Sivaramakrishnan, Jianmin Xu, Ralph Fernandes, and Baskar Krishnamoorthy
Web Handling Research Facilities Development
The Web Handling Research Center facilities have been developed with considerable assistance from its industrial sponsors, the U.S. Department of Education and the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology. Key facilities include a Beloit Winder (winding mechanics), a Fife Machine (wrinkling studies), a 3M Machine (tension control and measurement), a Roisum Machine (air-film studies), and the Computer-Aided Design and Interactive Graphics Laboratory (IBM RS 6000, Silicon Graphics, and Macintosh workstations). The facilities will be enhanced substantially by the installation in 1995 of a special high-speed "web line" designed and manufactured by Worldwide Converting Machinery in cooperation with Reliance Electric Company and Fife Corporation.
Sponsors: OCIDM, U.S. Department of Energy, Worldwide Converting Machinery, Reliance Electric Corp., and Fife Corporation
PIs: Karl N. Reid and J. Keith Good (Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering)
RAs: Ku-Chin Lin and Bruce A. Feiertag
Return to CEAT Main Menu
Go forward to CEAT Oklahoma Center for Laser Application and Technologies section