DMDII issues $12 million in applied R&D awards

The Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute (DMDII), a UI LABS collaboration in Chicago, has issued seven national applied R&D and demonstration awards. These projects address several digital manufacturing and design topics, including augmented reality (AR) for use on manufacturing shop floors and on wearable and mobile devices.

The projects involving AR—Manufacturing Work Instructions on Wearable and Mobile Devices with Augmented Reality (led by the Rochester Institute of Technology) and Authoring Augmented Reality Work Instructions by Expert Demonstration (led by Iowa State University)—reflect the great potential that AR holds as related technologies transition from consumer applications to the industrial sector.

“Our project will enable the creation of instructions for an AR-based training system that mimic the actual part manipulations of an expert,” said Eliot Winer, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Iowa State University.

Embedding visual instructions in an individual’s environment through projection, wearable elements, or hand-held devices can reduce training time and errors at multiple stages of the manufacturing process. AR also allows companies to redeploy experts to other tasks rather than time-consuming training sessions.

The other five contract awards are:

1. FactBoard: Real-Time Data-Driven Visual Decision Support System for the Factory Floor, led by Iowa State University.
2. Elastic Cloud-Based Make: Supply Chain Configuration Use Case, led by GE Global Research.
3. SPEC-OPS: Standards-based Platform for Enterprise Communication enabling Optimal Production and Self-awareness, led by Palo Alto Research Center.
4. Automated Manufacturability Analysis Software (ANA), led by Iowa State University.
5. Integrated Manufacturing Variation Management, led by Caterpillar Inc.

For more information about these projects, visit www.dmdii.org/projects.