Manufacturing Fellowship Extension in: Controlling geometrical variability of products in the digital and smart manufacturing era

This fellowship proposal is a three year extension of the current EPSRC manufacturing fellowship: Controlling Geometrical Variability of Products for Manufacturing (EP/I033424/1). The current fellowship is exploring the mathematical fundaments for the decomposition of geometry (i.e. size, shape and texture) and creating ground-breaking technology to control geometrical variability in manufactured products. The approach links fundamental geometrical mathematics direct to key component's design, manufacturing and verification from different industrial sectors (i.e. aerospace, optics, healthcare and catapult centres). In this case, the different types of geometrical decompositions specified geometrical surface requirements (spectrum, morphological and segmentation decompositions).
The fellowship extension proposal will take the research results from the current fellowship and use them as a stepping stone for more advanced fundamental research in new areas within the manufacturing value chain. The research work is broken down to four aspects:
1. Different aspects of the manufacturing process leave different multi-scalar geometrical features, in a surface, at different scales (i.e. size, shape and texture). By decomposing these different signature features, information regarding different manufacturing aspects can be gained enabling characterisation and control of different aspects of the manufacturing process.

2. Sensor network provide information in the form of an irregular image, like a cubist painting, with different views, and times, of the environment all combined together. Decomposition of this information will provide access to features, and their relationships enabling an agile dynamic predictive model to be self-aware of its environment enabling mathematical foundations for bio-inspired feedback control loops from sensor networks to be developed.

3. Smart autonomous manufacturing will require access to the huge amassed manufacturing knowledge-base (National and International Standards, Materials data-sheets, etc.). Create the foundations of decomposition of information structures for the automatic creation of smart information systems that are machine readable and to apply this result to develop the full rigorous mathematical foundations for the manufacturing value chain.

4. Using the EPSRC Future HUB in Advanced Metrology (EP/P006930/1) as leverage, disseminate the results from the above to solve real industrial problems to demonstrate the advantage of using fundamental decomposition theory, as developed in the previous manufacturing fellowship and this extension, over traditional approaches.

Academic community: Decomposition is the technique behind analysis: the process of breaking a complex topic into smaller parts in order to gain a better understanding of it. This approach is universal in academia, particularly STEM subjects. By providing a universal framework for decomposition, it is believed this will encourage cross fertilisation between many academic fields: growing knowledge and understanding in all the subject areas. Of particular importance is the decomposition of:
1) knowledge structures. The creation of smart information systems, within a particular academic field, will certainly increase the academic productivity within each field and encourage novel and enhanced teaching, from schools to PhDs.
2) bio-inspired feedback control loops from sensor networks. Control underpins most cyber-physical systems related research (e.g. smart buildings, structures and cities, next generation advanced nuclear manufacture and operations etc.). Decomposition of the sensor network information into features and patterns for control will also provide a foundation for such systems to achieve system level autonomous control.

Industry sectors: Using the EPSRC Future HUB in Advanced Metrology (EP/P006930/1) as leverage together with other HUBs and catapult centres, the research results will be disseminated to enhance the solution of real industrial problems across a range of industry sectors including: aerospace, automotive, bio-medical, electronics, energy generation, instruments & sensors, optics, and wider precision engineering. The improvements in design, manufacturing and verification capabilities will enable maximum improvements in manufacturing productivity, capability, quality and cost.

Embedded sensor networkss, metrology-driven control, and semantic systems can all be applied to other academic fields, where metrology-driven autonomous systems can also be generated allowing efficiencies in design, cost and performance

Policy makers and public corporations: The fellowship extension will also have an input into the Hub acting as a national focal point for Advanced Metrology and influence policy-makers through the national measurement strategy and manufacturing metrology standardisation.

Timescales
Short-term: By continuing the underlying research and exploring new approaches to this research, it is envisaged a new generation of decomposition-driven technologies will be delivered quickly. Collaborating companies will quickly assimilate the novel technologies, techniques and processes. Knowledge transfer activities, including metrology training, will also see significant industry benefits in skills development and decomposition best practice.

Medium term: The standardisation of the fundamental toolbox of practical advanced decomposition techniques. Within the British standards institute, the PI is convenor of committees TDW4/-/3. Here the results from the fellowship extension will be made available for national standardisation, which will help UK industry have a priority in using them. Further, it can finally propose to be a new ISO technical specification which can be published quickly for a wide range of industries to try out. Three years after publication technical specifications are reviewed and if found acceptable converted into full ISO standards.

Long-term: The potential impact of the research for the economic competitiveness of the UK is substantial and will facilitate integrated, digitalised and autonomous manufacturing. The UK will see greater productivity and efficiency, an increase in GVA contributions and a much higher skilled sector as a direct result of the extended fellowship: further developing UK manufacturing.