Collaborative Research: Developing the Foundations and Systems for Facilitating Geometric Interoperability

Purdue University, West Lafayette IN

Investigators

Abstract

Geometric representations make up the digital DNA of modern manufacturing systems broadly conceived. As such, geometric diversity and interoperability often determine complexity, adaptability, trustworthiness, and resilience of the whole manufacturing enterprise. Owing to the diversity of manufacturing tasks, geometric representations have evolved into a multiplicity of abstract models, data structures, and formats that are suitable and optimized for specific tasks. Interoperability between such representations and systems emerged as a central challenge in the design of manufacturing information systems that is costing the US industry and economy billions while impeding major technological trends. This research project aims to make broad advances in theory and practice of geometric interoperability. Furthermore, this research will provide theoretical foundations and algorithmic infrastructure for supporting major technological trends, including web-enabled and cloud-supported manufacturing, democratization of manufacturing, and long term preservation and archival of engineering data. The main goal of this research project is to extend and unify a formal semantics of extended geometric representations in support of advanced manufacturing systems and applications. This semantics will be used to formulate a rigorous algorithmic approach to interoperability in terms of a hierarchy of computable queries, superseding and leapfrogging earlier limited data-centric standardization efforts, and supporting diverse architectures for coming generations of information system. Specifically, this project will show the challenges of geometric interoperability may be overcome by (1) formulating sound rigorous foundations for geometric interoperability, (2) developing provable queries and algorithms based on the developed theory; and (3) demonstrating the power and effectiveness of the proposed approach to geometric interoperability