Elements: Elastica - A software ecosystem for modeling, simulation, design, and control of soft, compliant, and heterogenous structures interacting with their environment

这个用于持续科学创新的网络基础设施(CSSI)项目旨在将Elastica打造成一流的、开源的、即用即用的生态系统，用于模拟、分析、设计和控制由弹性细长元素组成的复杂结构。目标是使研究人员能够在三个被确定为基础性和具有国家战略重要性的知识空白中取得进展：(1)缺乏针对连续统一体、顺应和可配置的结构、设备和机器人的严格建模和工程设计方法；(2)缺乏能够有效协调这些分布式系统的几乎无限自由度的控制方法；(3)缺乏专门用于生物材料的模型和设计方法，以将生物材料结合到活的生物机器中，将完整的圆连接到第一个点。该项目将产生一个通用的计算框架，解决生物、机器人和控制交叉领域的一系列独特问题，从而通过先进的计算方法提高制造业的竞争力。这一努力得到了强有力的外展部分的补充。事实上，Elastica在动物运动和生物机器人方面的应用具有巨大的潜力，可以激发广大观众，特别是年轻观众的想象力。通过强调与自然世界的联系，将培养好奇心和创造力，吸引人们对数学、物理、生物和先进计算的关注。特别是Pap2tree项目，该项目让当地代表性不足的社区参与种植与科学发现相关的树木，将被用来吸引小学生。在这种情况下，这一努力将增强Elastica的建模能力和解决方法，目标是从数十万亿次浮点到千万亿次浮点级的模拟，需要在复杂环境中使用数百万根棒。同时，为了最大限度地提高采用率和影响力，将建立一个由前/后处理工具和界面组成的网络基础设施生态系统，这些工具和界面组织在易于定制的管道中。一个专注于科学、计算和网络基础设施创新的结构化项目计划将交付：(I)一个可扩展、通用和高效的Cosserat杆求解器，它结合了各种材料模型和环境界面条件，可以在从台式机到异质计算集群的各种计算架构上运行；(Ii)经过基准和验证的预构建原语模块，与上面确定的知识差距相关；(Iii)一套前后处理工具，帮助建立特定领域的工作流。在整个过程中，开放的科学和用户/开发者的支持将是核心，以加快采用，促进影响和催化创新。这一奖项由先进网络基础设施办公室由工程局内的土木工程、机械和制造创新司联合支持。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This Cyberinfrastructure for Sustained Scientific Innovation (CSSI) project seeks to establish Elastica as a best-in-class, open source, and ready-to-use ecosystem for the simulation, analysis, design, and control of complex structures made of elastic, slender elements. The goal is to enable researchers to make inroads in three knowledge gaps identified as foundational and of national strategic importance: (1) scarcity of rigorous modeling and engineering design methods for continuum, compliant and configurable structures, devices and robots; (2) paucity of control methods able to effectively coordinate the virtually infinite degrees of freedom that characterize these distributed systems; (3) lack of models and design methods specialized to biomaterials to be incorporated in living biological machines, connecting full circle to the first point. This project will result in a versatile computing framework that tackles a unique set of problems at the intersection of biology, robotics and control, thus increasing competitiveness in manufacturing via advanced computational methods. This effort is complemented by a strong outreach component. Indeed, applications of Elastica to animal locomotion and biological robots have great potential to capture the imagination of a broad, especially younger audience. By highlighting the natural world connection, curiosity and creativity will be fostered, drawing attention to math, physics, biology and advanced computing. Particularly, the paper2tree project that involves local, underrepresented communities in planting trees associated to scientific discoveries, will be leveraged to engage elementary-school students.Within this context, this effort will augment Elastica’s modeling capabilities and solution methods, aiming at tens-of-teraflops to petaflops-grade simulations entailing millions of rods in complex environments. Concurrently, to maximize adoption and impact, a cyberinfrastructure ecosystem of pre/post processing tools and interfaces, organized in easily customizable pipelines, will be created. A structured project plan focused on science, computing, and cyberinfrastructure innovation will deliver: (i) A scalable, versatile, and efficient Cosserat rod solver that incorporates a variety of material models and environmental interface conditions, and that can run on a range of computing architectures from desktops to heterogeneous computing clusters; (ii) Benchmarked and verified discipline-specific modules of prebuilt primitives relevant to address the identified knowledge gaps above; (iii) A suite of both pre/postprocessing tools to assist in setting up domain-specific workflows. Throughout, open science and users/developers support will be core, to accelerate adoption, foster impact and catalyze innovation.This award by the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure is jointly supported by the Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation within the Directorate for Engineering.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.