Title : NSF 96-94 EXPERIMENTS IN DISTRIBUTED DESIGN AND FABRICATION AND RAPID PROTOTYPING USING AGILE NETWORKING Type : Program Guideline NSF Org: CROSS-DIRECTORATE Date : May 9, 1996 File : nsf9694 EXPERIMENTS IN DISTRIBUTED DESIGN AND FABRICATION AND RAPID PROTOTYPING USING AGILE NETWORKING Initiative Announcement NSF DIRECTORATES FOR COMPUTER AND INFORMATION SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING AND ENGINEERING AND DARPA DEFENSE SCIENCES OFFICE ABSTRACT DEADLINE: August 2, 1996 PROPOSAL DEADLINE: August 15, 1996 NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION DEFENSE ADVANCED RESEARCH PROJECTS AGENCY EXPERIMENTS IN DISTRIBUTED DESIGN AND FABRICATION AND RAPID PROTOTYPING USING AGILE NETWORKING INTRODUCTION The United States has a competitive advantage in network infrastructure, high performance computing, and emerging rapid prototyping technologies the potential of which is just beginning to be appreciated. That high speed and wideband networks will enable rapid design, prototyping, and manufacturing to be done in new and different ways in the future seems obvious, yet the ways in which current practices will be transformed is not at all clear and initial experience suggests that the scientific and technological barriers that must be overcome are significant and not fully understood. This problem of distributed design and fabrication takes on added significance in a world that is evolving toward the creation of highly specialized, capital-intensive manufacturing facilities that are unlikely to be replicated extensively and may become national (or global) resources. In microelectronics manufacturing, the problems of design and production at a distance are better understood and have been largely "solved". While there are obvious differences between the manufacturing of integrated circuits and mechanical assemblies, there are also unexploited similarities, as identified in recent NSF Workshops . For example, the ability to automate the transformation of integrated circuit designs into working chip geometries with a high degree of certainty derives, in large part, from the conscious decision to restrict the range of design and process options to a constrained set of well-defined, standard devices and processes. The resulting "clean separation between design and process domains" may require some compromise in device performance or increased die size, but this tradeoff enables the design and fabrication of circuits of vastly increased complexity using standardized production facilities. In contrast, jet engine designers are encouraged to consider a relatively unrestricted range of geometries with the goal of optimizing performance, and manufacturing engineers are expected to develop specialized manufacturing technologies to realize their designs. Somewhere in between microelectronics manufacturing and numerically controlled machining are emerging manufacturing technologies, such as micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) and solid freeform fabrication (SFF). These technologies hold out the potential for producing mechanical devices using standard processes and appropriate building blocks, but, lacking structured design methodologies which separate design and fabrication, current implementations require significant designer-operator interactions and experience to adapt the design data files, define the process and adjust machine parameters. This "clean" separation between design and fabrication, which occurred in very large-scale integration (VLSI) , looks to be achievable for these technologies by choosing the digital interface to coincide with the most generic definition of layering technologies . There is a need for researchers in computer science, mechanical design and manufacturing to work together in these emerging technologies (MEMS and SFF) and in the traditional manufacturing technologies to define design languages, interface formats and fabrication systems with controls that will enable the reliable design and production of components at remote facilities. These groups of researchers have traditionally theorized separately about the future needs of manufacturing, with each deriving results that are somewhat disjoint from the state-of-the-art in their related disciplines. It is time to enable critical-mass experiments to crystallize the defining issues. PROPOSALS This joint DARPA/NSF initiative will request proposals for critical-mass experiments from research groups, each of which includes, but is not limited to, researchers in computer science, design and fabrication. The focus is on electro-mechanical parts and assemblies, and on establishing capabilities in mechanical design and fabrication comparable to the function-to-product realization capabilities that exist for microelectronics, that are emerging for MEMS, and that appear feasible for SFF and numerically controlled machining. Priority will be given to those proposals which fit the model of cleanly separating design and fabrication by identifying a well-defined digital interface between designer and fabricator and the necessary descriptive languages to enable the design and fabrication communities to communicate across it. The time is right to pursue experiments in the electromechanical design and fabrication world similar to those in the 1970's which were so successful in the VLSI world. Two types of awards are contemplated: (1) those for experimental fabrication testbeds which will be focused on: (a) the definition and development of one or more standard processes and the accompanying design rules and process descriptions for designers to use in order to communicate across the clean digital interface between design and fabrication; and (b) on the delivery of fabrication services to limited numbers of designers. These designers will submit specific designs over the network to the testbed to exercise the fabrication testbed system, thus providing practical demonstrations; and (2) those for research groups which will focus on capabilities that will be needed by the design community in order to rapidly and easily design increasingly complex products such as digital design languages, design tools, and design hierarchies. These capabilities will be made available to the fabrication testbeds and to the design community for testing and evaluation through actual use. Note: Each of the fabrication testbed and design groups will conduct their programs with the objective in mind of creating an integrated framework for distributed design and manufacturing. They will report periodically on their status in this regard and will accept guidance from NSF on ways to integrate their efforts with those of the other programs. Novel ideas that contribute to the integration of research and education in this newly emerging area are encouraged. (1) Experimental Testbeds The experimental testbed projects will provide services to designers in implementing designs across the clean interface and will provide process descriptions and design rule formulations in a form useful to designers. To the maximum degree possible, these descriptions and formulations will seek commonality across all or several of the fabrication technologies so that designers can conveniently address more than one technology. The testbed projects will also be expected to define and develop experiments to identify the key technological, operational and communication barriers to the design and production of mechanical components at a distance using high speed networks. Each testbed, which may consist of a distributed collection of services, will be expected to produce one or more working demonstrations within the three year time frame, and a business case analysis of potential commercial viability. The testbed projects will need to make use of available networking infrastructure in order to be able to provide the necessary services to designers. In addition, specialized requirements, not commercially available, may be placed on communication networks to enable the interaction of researchers at different locations, the integration of design and fabrication performed remotely, and precise control at the fabrication site. These may include network interfaces to fabrication systems, real-time protocols for remote control and steering, and wireless networks on the fabrication floor. (2) Research Groups The research groups will be focused on the design side of the digital interface. They will deal with topics such as: developing a descriptive language suitable for the objects being implemented, translation capability to a digital format suitable for transmission over a network; tools for manipulating the design description as required for the creation of a useful design hierarchy as well as higher levels of abstraction and CAD tools to move among them. Other important research topics to be dealt with are the evaluation of physical properties and behavioral capabilities of the design object and the capability to deal with the description of non-homogeneous objects. Also, how to express design rules in a precise form, and how to build design-rule-checking programs. These last two topics are likely to be much harder in the mechanical world than in VLSI. Although these design research groups will be probably be focused on one or more topics which might be related to a single fabrication technology, it will be important that the digital techniques they develop be applicable more generally to a range of electromechanical implementation technologies. They will be expected to communicate and work with other research groups to seek whatever language and language manipulation tool commonalities can be supported so that a full suite of robust tools can made available for use by designers in a range of technologies. Similarly they will be expected to avoid language choices which will limit future expansions in applicability (like the use of .STL language which seems to be near the limits of its capability today and which limits the capabilities for object editing and hierarchical design structures.) The integration of key research results among the participants in this initiative and with other related research and fabrication testbed efforts is central to this initiative, and will be a key evaluation criterion for proposals. This will require effective communications and making research results and software developed available to the design and testbed communities. Such communications and interchange of software and test results was invaluable to the early development of the VLSI design community. After awards are made, the Principal Investigators will receive periodic guidance from NSF on integration needs; continued funding of individual projects will be conditional on responding to such needs. During second half of this program, if required, efforts to integrate the results of several groups may be supported. As in the case of VLSI, the design research projects will be expected to seek commonalities so that the digital design language(s), tools, and levels of abstraction, can be applied across a variety of electromechanical implementation technologies with as few changes as possible. Seeking commonalities will not, however, be allowed to limit the capabilities to make use of the specific technologies. Provision should be made for non-homogeneous objects and objects with a wide range of physical structures. Design research efforts focused on two- and three-dimensional digital descriptive languages, design hierarchies, design rules and design tools will also be expected to see that the tools developed are exercised by implementing specific objects. The participants will make the tools and languages available for use by the fabrication testbeds and academic research community. Research groups will provide a business case analysis for the general applicability and usefulness of their tools. AWARD SIZE AND NUMBER The awards for the testbeds will be up to $450,000/year for a three year period (including the costs for providing fabrication services). Those awards for the design research efforts will be up to $250,000/year, also for three years, because of their more limited scope. The intention is to support three to six testbeds under this program in areas such as: MEMS, several different SFF technologies, and those forms of machining fabrication and flexible assembly capable of using all digital interfaces between design and fabrication to effect a clean separation from design. The intention is to support five to eight design research groups to address the variety of testbed technologies as well as the different design hierarchy tasks. The efforts of the separate groups will be loosely linked. Adequate travel funds should be requested to allow for attendance at periodic meetings and for site visits to relevant research venues. MANAGEMENT Communication and integration of fabrication testbed and research results are of high priority and proposals reflecting the importance of integration as well as implementation plans for integration will be given special consideration. In addition, integration between the fabrication testbeds and the research groups will be facilitated by semiannual grantee meetings to be sponsored by NSF and open to academic and industrial participation. Semiannual reviews by NSF will be also be part of the management plan. While not required, projects which include significant collaborations with existing Agile Manufacturing Research Institutes, Agile Pilot Projects and/or participation from industrial firms are encouraged. The business model is to prototype networked access to specialized tool and fabrication capabilities that can be selectively integrated in "virtual enterprise" manufacturing organizations. The technology transition path is for services that prove successful in supporting the rapid prototyping research community to evolve to commercially available fee-for-service suppliers with capabilities available over the Internet. NSF and DARPA will jointly select and fund proposals, which will be managed by NSF. INQUIRIES Inquiries of a general nature about this program initiative can be addressed to any of the individuals listed below. Dr. Bernard Chern, MIPS Division 703-306-1940, bchern@nsf.gov Dr. Bruce Kramer, DMII Division 703-306-1330, bkramer@nsf.gov Dr. J. Hilibrand, MIPS Division 703-306-1936, jhilibra@nsf.gov Dr. George Hazelrigg, DMII Division 703-306-1327, ghazelri@nsf.gov PROPOSAL PREPARATION AND EVALUATION Abstracts of all proposals to be submitted in response to this initiative should be sent by email to ddf@nsf.gov no later than August 2, 1996. Abstracts should include a list of all investigators with their institutions. All proposals must be prepared in accordance with instructions contained in the NSF Grant Proposal Guide (NSF 95-27). Single copies of this brochure are available at no cost from the NSF Forms and Publications Unit (703-306-1130) or via email (pubs@nsf.gov). Brochures are also available through NSF's Science and Technology Information System (telnet stis.nsf.gov) and the World Wide Web (http://www.nsf.gov/). Proposals should be submitted to the Distributed Design and Fabrication Initiative, National Science Foundation PPU, 4201 Wilson Boulevard, Room P60, Arlington, VA, 22230. Proposals submitted in response to this initiative should specify "Distributed Design and Fabrication" and list the announcement number (NSF 96-94) on the proposal cover sheet (NSF Form 1207), All proposals must be received by NSF no later than August 15, 1996. Fifteen copies are required, one of which must be signed by the Principal Investigator(s) and an official authorized to commit the proposing institution. For information regarding electronic proposal submission, contact the Electronic Proposal Submission Project Leader, Division of Information Systems, via electronic mail to eps@nsf.gov or by telephone at 703-306-1144. Proposals will be subject to the NSF peer review process which may include panel and/or mail review. Criteria by which proposals are judged can be found in the Grant Proposal Guide; they include the intrinsic merit of the research, the capability of the investigators, and the effect of the research on the infrastructure of science and engineering in the area covered by this initiative. GENERAL INFORMATION The Foundation provides awards for research in the sciences and engineering. The awardee is wholly responsible for the conduct of such research and preparation of the results for publication. The Foundation, therefore, does not assume responsibility for the research findings or their interpretation. The Foundation welcomes proposals from all qualified scientists and engineers and strongly encourages women, minorities, and persons with disabilities to compete fully in any of the research related programs described here. In accordance with federal statues, regulations, and NSF policies, no person on grounds of race, color, age, sex, national origin, or disability shall be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subject to discrimination under any program or activity receiving financial assistance from the National Science Foundation. Facilitation Awards for Scientists and Engineers with Disabilities (FASED) provide funding for special assistance or equipment to enable persons with disabilities (investigators and other staff, including student research assistants) to work on NSF projects. See the program announcement or contact the program coordinator at (703) 306-1636. Privacy Act and Public Burden. The information requested on proposal forms is solicited under the authority of the National Science Foundation Act of 1950, as amended. It will be used in connection with the selection of qualified proposals and may be disclosed to qualified reviewers and staff assistants as part of the review process; to applicant institutions/grantees; to provide or obtain data regarding the application review process, award decisions, or the administration of awards; to government contractors, experts, volunteers, and researchers as necessary to complete assigned work; and to other government agencies in order to coordinate programs. See Systems of Records, NSF 50, Principal Investigators/Proposal File and Associated Records, and NSF-51, 60 Federal Register 4449 (January 23, 1995). Reviewer/Proposal File and Associated Records, 59 Federal Register 8031 (February 17, 1994). Submission of the information is voluntary. Failure to provide full and complete information, however, may reduce the possibility of your receiving an award. Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 120 hours per response, including the time for reviewing instructions. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden, to Herman G. Fleming, Reports Clearance Officer, Contracts, Policy, and Oversight, National Science Foundation, 4201 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, VA 22230. The National Science Foundation has TDD (Telephonic Device for the Deaf) capability, which enables individuals with hearing impairment to communicate with the Foundation about NSF programs, employment, or general information. To access NSF TDD dial (703) 306-0090; for FIRS, 1-800-877-8339. The following codes refer to this document and the sponsoring organizations. OMB 3145-0058. P.T. 34. K.W. 1004000, 0600000, 1009000. CFDA #47.070 #47.041, #47.049. NSF 96-94 New Paradigms for Manufacturing, NSF Workshop Report NSF 94-123, Arlington, VA May 2-4, 1994. NSF Workshop on Design Methodologies for Solid Freeform Fabrication, June 5-6, 1995 at Engineering Design Research Center Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA., NSF 96-216 http://www.edrc.cmu.edu/proc/DMSFF95/ NSF Workshop on Structured Design Methodologies for Micro electromechanical Systems (MEMS) , November 12-15,1995 at California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA., Report in preparation, draft available from Erik Antonsson, erik@design.caltech.edu C.A. Mead- New Paradigms for Manufacturing, NSF Workshop Report NSF 94-123 pg.2 NSF Workshop on Design Methodologies for Solid Freeform Fabrication pg.16,34