Expanding Rapid Prototyping for Electronic Systems Integration of Arbitrary Form

An innovative method for rapid prototyping (RP) of electronic circuits with components characteristic of typical electronics applications was demonstrated using an enhanced version of a previously developed hybrid stereolithography (SL) and direct write (DW) system, where an existing SL machine was integrated with a three-axis DW fluid dispensing system for combined arbitrary form electronic systems manufacturing. This paper presents initial efforts at embedding functional electronic circuits using the hybrid SL/DW system. A simple temperature-sensitive circuit was selected, which oscillated an LED at a frequency proportional to the temperature sensed by the thermistor. The circuit was designed to incorporate all the required electronic components within a 2.5” x 2” x 0.5” SL part. Electrical interconnects between electronic components were deposited on the SL part with a DW system using silver conductive ink lines. Several inks were deposited, cured, and tested on a variety of SL resin substrates, and the E 1660 ink (Ercon Inc, Wareham, MA) was selected due to its measured lowest average resistivity on the SL substrates. The finished circuit was compared with Printed Circuit Board (PCB) technology for functionality. The electronic components used here include a low voltage battery, LM 555 timer chip, resistors, a thermistor, capacitors, and Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs). This circuit was selected because it (1) represented a simple circuit combining many typically used electronic components and thus provided a useful demonstration for integrated electronic systems manufacturing applicable to a wide variety of devices, and (2) provided an indication of the parasitic resistances and capacitances introduced by the fabrication process due to its sensitivity to manufacturing variation. The hybrid technology can help achieve significant size reductions, enable systems integration in atypical forms, a natural resistance to reverse engineering and possibly increase maximum operating temperatures of electronic circuits as compared to the traditional PCB process. This research demonstrates the ability of the hybrid SL/DW technology for fabricating combined electronic systems for unique electronics applications in which arbitrary form is a requirement and traditional PCB technology cannot be used.Mechanical Engineerin

Integration of Direct-Write (DW) and Ultrasonic Consolidation (UC) Technologies to Create Advanced Structures with Embedded Electrical Circuitry

In many instances conductive traces are needed in small, compact and enclosed areas. However, with traditional manufacturing techniques, embedded electrical traces or antenna arrays have not been a possibility. By integrating Direct Write and Ultrasonic Consolidation technologies, electronic circuitry, antennas and other devices can be manufactured directly into a solid metal structure and subsequently completely enclosed. This can achieve a significant reduction in mass and volume of a complex electronic system without compromising performance.Mechanical Engineerin

Trends of systems engineering job postings and their implications for curriculum development

Recent studies in systems engineering indicate that the design, development, and management of systems will continue increasing in complexity. The foreseen growth is expected as future capabilities require understanding the system and its operating environment, adapting to rapid-changing scenarios, integrating more independent hardware and software elements, coordinating with multiple stakeholders across the system’s lifecycle, among others. To develop the next generation of systems, alignment between industry needs and curricula from higher-education institutions should exist. Therefore, this research contributes to the human capital development of systems engineering in the United States by exploring current job opportunities and their relationship to existing academic offerings in Hispanic-Serving Institutions. The study analyzes job openings from INCOSE’s CAB Members to capture current needs in terms of role description lifecycle experience, tools and methodologies needed in the job market, and it explores the relationship of systems engineering methodologies covered in Hispanic-Serving Institutions. The outcome of this research provides a direction to support the development, adoption, and update of higher-education systems engineering curriculum that aligns with current industry needs

Hybrid Manufacturing: Integrating Direct Write and Stereolithography

A commercial stereolithography (SL) machine was modified to integrate fluid dispensing or direct-write (DW) technology with SL in an integrated manufacturing environment for automated and efficient hybrid manufacturing of complex electrical devices, combining threedimensional (3D) electrical circuitry with SL-manufactured parts. The modified SL system operates similarly to a commercially available machine, although build interrupts were used to stop and start the SL build while depositing fluid using the DW system. An additional linear encoder was attached to the SL platform z-stage and used to maintain accurate part registration during the SL and DW build processes. Individual STL files were required as part of the manufacturing process plan. The DW system employed a three-axis translation mechanism that was integrated with the commercial SL machine. Registration between the SL part, SL laser and the DW nozzle was maintained through the use of 0.025-inch diameter cylindrical reference holes manufactured in the part during SL. After depositing conductive ink using DW, the SL laser was commanded to trace the profile until the ink was cured. The current system allows for easy exchange between SL and DW in order to manufacture fully functional 3D electrical circuits and structures in a semi-automated environment. To demonstrate the manufacturing capabilities, the hybrid SL/DW setup was used to make a simple multi-layer SL part with embedded circuitry. This hybrid system is not intended to function as a commercial system, it is intended for experimental demonstration only. This hybrid SL/DW system has the potential for manufacturing fully functional electromechanical devices that are more compact, less expensive, and more reliable than their conventional predecessors, and work is ongoing in order to fully automate the current system.Mechanical Engineerin

Exploring Student Learning Experience of Systems Engineering Course Developed for Manufacturing and Industrial Engineering Graduates

This paper describes the introduction to the concepts and methodology of Systems Engineering to the students of a graduate Manufacturing and Industrial Engineering program in the University of xxxxxx. This graduate course was initially developed to be a part of traditional face to face lecture-based curriculum, however with the onset of COVID-19 pandemic, it was restructured to be discoursed in an online format. This paper discusses on course structure used to enforce online systems engineering learning over a period of 14 weeks. This included addressing the basic concepts of systems engineering to provide the students’ knowledge to facilitate transformation of operational needs to a well-defined system. Further, students reviewed the iterative design process of problem formulation, analysis, optimization, design synthesis, system integration, and testing along with developing an ability to compare systems engineering life cycle models from INCOSE, Department of Defense, and NASA. To measure the student understanding and the ability to translate the concepts learning to real world applications, student teams were tasked to use CanSat 2021-22 competition as a case study. The survey instruments used over the course timeline to understand student learning experience are explained

State of Industry 5.0—Analysis and Identification of Current Research Trends

The term Industry 4.0, coined to be the fourth industrial revolution, refers to a higher level of automation for operational productivity and efficiency by connecting virtual and physical worlds in an industry. With Industry 4.0 being unable to address and meet increased drive of personalization, the term Industry 5.0 was coined for addressing personalized manufacturing and empowering humans in manufacturing processes. The onset of the term Industry 5.0 is observed to have various views of how it is defined and what constitutes the reconciliation between humans and machines. This serves as the motivation of this paper in identifying and analyzing the various themes and research trends of what Industry 5.0 is using text mining tools and techniques. Toward this, the abstracts of 196 published papers based on the keyword “Industry 5.0” search in IEEE, science direct and MDPI data bases were extracted. Data cleaning and preprocessing were performed for further analysis to apply text mining techniques of key terms extraction and frequency analysis. Further topic mining i.e., unsupervised machine learning method was used for exploring the data. It is observed that the terms artificial intelligence (AI), big data, supply chain, digital transformation, machine learning, internet of things (IoT), are among the most often used and among several enablers that have been identified by researchers to drive Industry 5.0. Five major themes of Industry 5.0 addressing, supply chain evaluation and optimization, enterprise innovation and digitization, smart and sustainable manufacturing, transformation driven by IoT, AI, and Big Data, and Human-machine connectivity were classified among the published literature, highlighting the research themes that can be further explored. It is observed that the theme of Industry 5.0 as a gateway towards human machine connectivity and co-existence is gaining more interest among the research community in the recent years

Regulated MAS: Social Perspective

This chapter addresses the problem of building normative multi-agent systems in terms of regulatory mechanisms. It describes a static conceptual model through which one can specify normative multi-agent systems along with a dynamic model to capture their operation and evolution. The chapter proposes a typology of applications and presents some open problems. In the last section, the authors express their individual views on these mattersMunindar Singh’s effort was partially supported by the U.S. Army Research Office under grant W911NF-08-1-0105. The content of this paper does not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the U.S. Government; no official endorsement should be inferred or implied. Nicoletta Fornara’s effort is supported by the Hasler Foundation project nr. 11115-KG and by the SER project nr. C08.0114 within the COST Action IC0801 Agreement Technologies. Henrique Lopes Cardoso’s effort is supported by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), under project PTDC/EIA-EIA/104420/2008. Pablo Noriega’s effort has been partially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology through the Agreement Technologies CONSOLIDER project under contract CSD2007-0022, and the Generalitat of Catalunya grant 2009-SGR-1434.Peer Reviewe

Exploring Systems Performance Using Modeling and Simulation – Project-based Study and Teaching

Modeling and Simulation (M&S) provides a risk-free environment allowing the users to experiment in a computer-generated virtual platform and analyze the what-if scenarios for effective decision support systems. Due to its pervasive usefulness, the concept of M&S is widely used across many sectors, including manufacturing, warehouse operations, supply chain, logistics, transportation, mining, and many more. The field of M&S requires computer-intensive and software-based training, which is very different from teaching in a regular classroom setting. Hence, we develop a three-stage (mimic-guide-scaffold) project-based teaching strategy to enhance students learning experience in M&S education. Here, students first follow the instructor to understand basics of simulation and become familiar with AnyLogic software. Second, the students work on a group project under the passive supervision of the instructor to enhance their problem-solving capability. In the third step, students work independently on a similar but extensive project to scaffold their knowledge. The project was designed to answer three high-level key research questions for a hospital system including systems throughput, resource utilization, and patients’ length of stay reduction. We performed a thorough evaluation using an anonymous survey, where thirty-one students participated to provide their feedback. This paper provides a detailed description of the projects including problem statements, learning objectives, evaluation rubrics, data collection criteria, and evaluation outcomes with detailed discussion

Fundamental Strings and Black Holes

We propose a black hole thermodynamic description of highly excited charged and uncharged perturbative string states in 3+1 dimensional type II and 4+1 dimensional heterotic string theory. We also discuss the generalization to extremal and non-extremal black holes carrying magnetic charges.Comment: 25 pages, harvmac; V2: Added reference

Embedding Computer Simulation Based Classroom Activities to Enhance the Learning Experience for Manufacturing Systems

In recent time, manufacturing environment are bracing higher end technologies to achieve high productivity, efficiency and effectiveness. Due to the adoption of the sophisticated technologies, the system is becoming very complex and stochastic. Moreover, the manufacturing system is interconnected among its different subsystems and components, which cannot be described only through the theoretical explanation. Here, computer simulation can be integrated to design and visualize the stochastic and complex system. This paper uses the advantage of simulation to describe a series classroom activity using SIMIO software, which are deployed in industrial systems simulation course in the University of Texas at El Paso. Besides, the authors show a noble approach to demonstrate the simulation using the virtual reality (VR) technology in Unity platform. Integration of these simulation based classroom activities provide three-fold benefit to students’ learning process; (1) it provides an effective way to evaluate the design and operational performance of manufacturing systems, (2) students can experience the real time situation by imitating a manufacturing environment, and (3) it motivates the students to be engaged in the classroom activities besides learning the theoretical knowledge