EAGER/Collaborative Research/Cyber Manufacturing: Cyber-Manufacturing Systems for Open Product Realization

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Open Product Realization is a new paradigm of product design and manufacturing where distributed consumers and suppliers actively participate and collaborate in the process of design, fabrication and value creation. This EArly-concept Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER) project aims to develop scientific principles and methods for designing cyber manufacturing systems in support of open product realization through personalization involving user-in-the-loop design, responsive manufacturing, and distributed assembly. Personalized products will bring added value to the consumers because of the improved usability and functionality. Personalization also has the potential to transform the design and manufacture of consumer products by changing the design goal from focusing on the product to focusing on the customer. In turn, manufacturers will embrace the paradigm of open architecture products and personalization, enabling a new culture of open collaboration and innovation. Entrepreneurs will be attracted to such a paradigm because it provides a new platform for innovation. New companies will be created to participate in the design of innovative modules and products to enhance product functionality. Therefore, this project will have the potential to significantly impact the U.S. economy and society as a whole. Cyber-manufacturing algorithms and technologies will be developed to enable personalized design under assembly constraints, and rapid fabrication and assembly methods for product co-creation. More natural interfaces using tablets and cloud-based computing will be created to support personalized design and manufacturing. The research tasks are: (1) "Art-to-part" cyber platforms enabling the customer to create, manipulate, and modify virtual shapes in a straightforward manner, and visualize the final product after assembly; (2) Process planning and quality control tools for rapid manufacturing of personalized modules using additive manufacturing; and (3) Integration of individual tools and system-level validation with a distributed test bed approach to realize an industrial-scale system. Students will learn, collaborate and innovate by participating in the research as "customers", designers, and manufacturers.