Developing Machine Learning-empowered Responsive Manufacture Of Industrial Laser Systems

飞机陀螺仪、电信、制造业和手术工具等等；光学系统，尤其是激光器，是许多现代设备的关键部件。这些系统的制造支撑着一个庞大的全球产业。其中许多都非常复杂，有几十个光学元件，每个元件都需要以极高的精度放置在系统中；任何不对齐都会导致性能差，或者整个系统的故障。目前，这是通过使用高素质（甚至达到博士水平）和经验丰富的系统组装团队来完成的，他们依靠大量的诊断和测试设备来对每个组件的位置进行细微的调整。这既耗时又昂贵。无论从规模还是规格上都很难修改生产。因此，这些系统非常昂贵，而且对不断变化的需求或技术改进的潜力反应缓慢。该项目将开发用于组装激光器和其他光学系统的自动化机器人和机电一体化系统。我们将联合起来；对高技能操作人员的观察；来自自动诊断和测试设备的反馈；机器人对准工具手持机器人；机器学习和搜索算法的结合将用于控制对齐过程。由此产生的系统将具有适应性，能够应对零件生产的变化，供应链的变化，设计规范的修改，以及能够快速适应需求的变化。它还将导致这些系统的设计和开发方式以及可以实现的性能水平发生根本变化。

Aircraft gyroscope, telecommunications, manufacturing, and surgical tools to name a few; optical systems, and especially lasers, are critical components in a host of modern devices. The manufacture of these systems supports a massive, global industry. Many of these are extraordinarily complex with dozens of optical components each of which needs to be placed in the system with enormous accuracy; any misalignment will result in poor performance, or the failure of the entire system. Currently this is accomplished by using highly qualified (even up to PhD level) and highly experienced system assembly teams who rely on a whole host of diagnostic and test equipment to make minute adjustments to the placement of each component. This is both time consuming and very expensive. It is also very difficult to modify production either terms of scale or specification. As a result these systems are very expensive and slow to respond to changing demand or potential for technical improvement. This project will develop an automated robotic and mechatronic system for assembling lasers and other optical systems. We will combine; observations of highly skilled human operators; feedback from automated diagnostic and test equipment; robotic alignment tool wielding robots; and a combination of machine learning and search algorithms which will be used to control the alignment process.The resulting system will be adaptive, able to cope with variations in part production, changes to the supply chain, modifications to the design specification, as well as being able to rapidly adapt to changes in demand. It will also result in a fundamental change to the way these systems are designed and developed and the levels of performance which can be achieved.