FEATURE FOCUS: Engineering's Next Frontier
disruptions
of progress
There's
no slowing the pace of technological change: Engineering practice will
have to adapt to keep up.
the
engineering profession is currently facing an unprecedented array of pressures
to change. Economic and environmental problems facing industry and society
are increasingly global and intractable. The skills that must be brought
to bear on their solution go well beyond the historical scope of engineering
practice. The profession is becoming more complex, with the boundaries
established in the 19th and 20th centuries between the traditional engineering
and science disciplines blurring or disappearing. Several decades ago,
it was easy to identify the scope and activities of mechanical, civil,
and electrical engineers. Today, that is no longer the case.
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| Collaborating engineers in the future will have tools including 3-D autostereoscopic and holographic displays, teleimmersion, sketch interpretation, and robotic and wireless handheld computers. |
Profound scientific understanding, and powerful computing, communication,
and engineering tools have spawned a revolution in professional practice,
as well as in the complexity of engineered systems. For example, take
the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner, scheduled for service in 2008. It has a
number of novel features, including new lightweight composite materials
for the primary structure, large fuselage sections with integrated stringers,
and health management processes and technology for improved safety and
flexibility. It is designed for reduced maintenance. Computational fluid
dynamics helped designers reduce drag, increase fuel economy, and improve
environmental performance.
Through electronically enabled connectivity, the crew can get sophisticated
technical data in real time, while passengers enjoy in-flight Internet
and e-mail access. Boeing is using a "market-driven" approach for the
development of the aircraft, a plan that was successfully used for the
predecessor aircraft, the 777. The design/build teams are diverse and
multidisciplinary, encompassing the engineers and people representing
suppliers and customers. The teams, which have partners in many countries,
are linked together electronically.
The 787 aircraft, like the 777, is designed entirely by computer simulation.
More than 300 trade studies were completed in one year, comparing the
relative merits of different design options.
Disruptive Technologies
The pace of technological change continues to accelerate. Technological
advances are fueling more technological advances and are providing exciting
opportunities as well as challenges to the engineering profession. New
knowledge is created at a faster rate than anyone can learn it. A number
of disruptive technologies emerging from the biology, nanotechnology,
and information fields are likely to cause radical changes in the way
products and systems are developed, as well as in the way engineering
work is performed.
For instance, biomechatronics is the interdisciplinary study of biology,
mechanics, and electronics. It focuses on the development and optimization
of mechatronic systems using biological and medical knowledge. Primitive
biomechatronic devices, such as the heart pacemaker, have existed for
some time.
Current activities in biomechatronics include the development of artificial
biohybrid limbs that merge artificial components with human tissue—muscles,
skeletal architecture, and the neurological system—and work like
fully functioning human appendages. Among the future exciting biomechatronic
possibilities are bionically inspired robotics, mentally controlled electronic
muscle stimulators for stroke and accident survivors, cameras that can
be wired into the brain allowing blind people to see, and microphones
that can be wired into the brain enabling deaf people to hear.
Optoelectronics and silicon photonics are promising to advance data processing
and communications. Optoelectronics is the intersection of photonics (the
technology of transmission, control, and detection of light) and electronics.
The major use of optoelectronics is in extremely fast, light-speed data
links at all scales, ranging from chip-to-chip interconnects to telecommunications.
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| A researcher may one day use a wearable computer, consisting of an electronic fabric and a flexible display, to communicate wirelessly with a knowledge repository of the Mars Astrobiology Science Lab. |
Silicon photonics is the use of silicon manufacturing processes to create
novel transistor-like devices that can encode data onto a light beam,
essentially making lasers out of silicon. The principle was demonstrated
by Intel last year and could lead to optical devices of standard silicon,
rather than expensive materials requiring complex manufacturing. Then
the econo- mies of scale that have been achieved for electronics could
apply to the photonics industry. Among the possible applications are faster
high-performance computers, a faster Internet, ultra-high-definition displays
including 3-D virtual presence, and vision recognition systems.
Digital fabrication, actually a family of technologies, captures and transmits
3-D models, and builds them into physical products. The central technology
is the digital fabricator, or fabber, a "factory in a box" that makes
things automatically from digital data. It generates solid objects, including
models of product designs. It is used by manufacturers for low-volume
production and rapid prototyping.
On the horizon is the next generation—microfabbers. The future may
see nanofabbers. The technology may lead to novel kinds of Internet appliances
able to download a model and make a product immediately and automatically.
Meanwhile, the globalization of the economy—made possible by advances
in technology—has already changed engineering practice. International
companies design products for the global marketplace. Enterprises are
strategically distributing their design and product creation activities
into different regions to remain competitive.
Skills for the
Future
The National Academy of Engineering published vision reports in 2004 and
2005 looking ahead to 2020. They described a set of attributes that are
expected to be necessary for engineers to perform well.
To have an important decision-making role in society, engineers will need
a broad, flexible perspective. They will have to be able to see a big
picture: the interrelationships of the technical, business, and social
issues relevant to a problem. Engineers also will need strong analytical
skills, and the ability to connect basic science to practice, in order
to define and solve complex engineering problems.
Communication and teamwork skills will become important components of
engineering education. Future engineers will have to work effectively
with diverse multidisciplinary teams, some of whose members may come from
outside the engineering and science fields.
The rapid pace of change in technology makes life-long learning skills
necessary for the professional survival of future engineers.
Change management skills are important in view of the rapid changes in
engineering organizations, management practices, products, methodologies,
and processes, as well as in workplace environments. Professionals must
learn the steps to take to manage the uncertainty of transition, as well
as strategies to help the workforce move forward, and remain motivated
and productive, after a change.
Future High-Tech
Systems
Future space exploration, transportation, and health care systems will
be complex systems-of-systems, developed through just-in-time collaborations
of globally distributed teams linked seamlessly by an infrastructure of
networked devices, tools, facilities, and processes. The system-of-systems
approach addresses large-scale integration of multiple heterogeneous distributed
systems, which are operationally and managerially independent. The emergent
behavior of the system-of-systems cannot be localized to any component
system.
Some of the future high-tech products will require a system-of-systems
design and management approach. For example, take the intelligent vehicle
concept—an initiative launched eight years ago by the U.S. Department
of Transportation, and currently being explored by the automotive industry.
The overall goal is to provide significant improvements in comfort, safety,
energy efficiency, emission controls, and connectivity over today's car.
The vehicle will have a blend of networked embedded intelligence with
drive-by-wire driver interface; novel vehicle architecture; lightweight
materials; multifunctional high-definition displays; speech recognition
technology; smart vehicle motion control, communication, and navigation
systems; and fuel cells for power.
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| An engineer in the not-so-distant future will be able to compare the data of an experiment with the results of a simulation in real time, and will do so on a computer small enough to fit one hand. |
The drive-by-wire interface is similar to a method that has been used
for more than a decade in commercial aircraft. For cars, it refers to
removing the mechanical linkage between the controls of a vehicle and
the devices that actually do the work. Instead of operating the steering
and brakes directly, the controls would send commands to a central computer,
which would instruct the vehicle what to do.
The computer can make the steering, suspension, and brakes work together,
resulting in better handling, particularly under bad road conditions,
and in improved fuel consumption. It could also provide faster reaction
to emergencies than a human driver can. The vehicle with drive-by-wire
interface can be viewed as "a computer network with a car wrapped round
it."
An elaborate sensory system will form the heart of the intelligent vehicle.
The sensors measure vehicle movement, monitor its actuators, and collect
information about the environment outside. Advanced vehicle safety and
collision avoidance systems include systems to warn of hazards ahead,
lane departure warning systems, special scanners to locate the positions
of passengers and optimize the use of airbags, and external airbags that
inflate in the split seconds before a collision with a pedestrian. Automatic
distance control can be accomplished by using radar to monitor the traffic
situation ahead of the vehicle, thereby ensuring not only an automatically
defined safety gap, but also that the stopping distance is shortened.
Electronic systems will be used for regulating all active components,
including drive, brakes, steering, and running gear in any given situation.
Knowledge-based systems will be used for measuring the driver's biometric
data, monitoring the level of his attention while operating the vehicle,
and then exerting a positive effect on him, possibly with the help of
patterns, colors, music, or fragrances. Vehicle telematics will be used
for long-distance transmission of data to and from a vehicle, including
on-demand navigation and remote diagnostics.
The intelligence built into the vehicle can eliminate the need for certain
service work.
Future Virtual
Products
The realization of future high-tech systems will require a network of
information and knowledge management.
Furthermore, with pressure on manufacturers to develop products that satisfy
customers' needs, modular product design concepts, currently used in the
electronics
industry, will be adopted by other high-tech manufacturers. Modular design
can permit manufacturers to build precisely what the customer orders.
For modular concepts to be practical, only a few steps should be required
at the assembly plant to put together the products built at separate locations.
This, in turn, might require changes in the product creation process,
including product development, production, and supply.
An efficient product creation process is increasingly viewed as the key
to enhancing competitiveness of companies and plants. As the trends of
distributed collaboration and large-scale integration of computing resources
continue, a fundamental paradigm shift will occur toward virtual product
creation. Continuous digitization of product creation is a promising approach
that increases the innovation potential, and accelerates the conversion
of ideas into marketable products.
Old Dominion University's Center for Advanced Engineering Environments,
funded by NASA, is working with partner universities and technology providers
to develop prototypes of technologies that engineers may use in the future.
The prototypes incorporate knowledge-based engineering tools and intelligent
software agents (software entities that perform tasks and achieve defined
goals), with human-like avatars acting as virtual assistants or peers,
to automate all the routine tasks. Several user interfaces are provided
in the prototypes, including natural language, hand and face gestures,
and mobile handheld devices.
Prototype technologies being developed include an intelligent visual simulation
facility for the conceptual design of future aerospace vehicles; an immersive
virtual space exploration facility; and an integrated facility for information
retrieval, visualization, customization, and summarization.
The visual simulation facility is used to permit real-time configuration
selection, evaluation of different concepts and "what-if" studies—integrating
and automating design, rapid analysis, and optimization processes. Product
models can be modified in real time.
The virtual space exploration facility is intended for studying different
scenarios for future human-robotic missions, and analyzing the architectures
needed for those missions.
The information retrieval facility aims at providing customized information
quickly, efficiently, and effortlessly, regardless of the physical location.
It integrates different kinds of information from disparate sources for
better understanding and analysis. It has a variety of visual representation
tools, and an intelligent system for providing answers to specific questions
in an intuitive manner.
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| Intelligent agents will be available to help information-seekers negotiate knowledge repositories on the World Wide Web. Future devices will be smaller, faster, and smarter than today's. |
The prototypes will be important elements for three key components envisioned
for the future virtual product creation environment. The first key component
is a virtual product hub, a virtual network linking all the participants
in the product lifecycle, and providing for secure access, sharing, and
management of product information.
It would allow pervasive use of both product life-cycle simulation software
tools and life-cycle management systems to track and control all product-related
information over the complete life cycle of an asset.
Modeling, simulation, visualization, and optimization tools are viewed
as network services, supporting collaboration among globally distributed,
diverse teams.
The life-cycle simulation tools predict, with a high degree of certainty,
the performance of the product. The advanced design-of-experiments tools
help to understand failures that may occur. The simulation and design-of-experiments
tools also reduce reliance on tests of physical prototypes. They can improve
product performance, quality, and safety while reducing warranty risk
and cost.
The hub includes a knowledge repository containing integrated product
databases, a lessons-learned database, and an artificial intelligence-supported
context search, to enable concise and relevant searches of legacy information
from disparate sources.
Several advanced interfaces are provided for supporting intuitive, flexible,
efficient, and powerfully expressive interaction with the hub, far beyond
using a keyboard and mouse. These include voice with digital lip reader
to enhance the accuracy of recognition, hand, or head gestures (for example,
head nodding and shaking), touch, sketch, mobile handheld devices, and
their possible combinations. The user can choose the modality, or channel
of communication, to suit the specifics of the task.
The hub also incorporates reasoning engines with facilities for recognizing
related and unrelated product data, and for dealing with a dynamic environment,
where product information is rapidly changing.
An intelligent integrated networked design environment is connected with
the hub. It incorporates flexible dynamic information devices; 3-D multi-user
displays; sketch interpretation tools; advanced interfaces, and telepresence
facilities, which enable the team members to appear as collocated and
to communicate gestures with verbal exchanges, along with the information
and visuals during collaboration. The environment incorporates a range
of knowledge management tools and other leading-edge technologies to facilitate
simultaneous collaborative design.
Through the use of knowledge-based engineering tools and intelligent software
agents, all noncreative tasks are automated. Informed trade studies and
design decisions are enabled early in the design cycle, and experience
gained from previous products is exploited, through the use of the decision
support tools and the knowledge repository of the hub.
There is also a prototype set of tools for managing complexities and uncertainties.
Various tools handle complex physics data, varying degrees of model fidelity
needed in the various stages of product design, performance evaluation
of the product, process automation, risk analysis, and optimization.
The High-Tech
Future
The engineering profession is in the midst of a substantial worldwide
transformation. The next decades will reverse the trend followed in the
19th and 20th centuries of disintegrating the profession into specific
disciplines. Instead, the years ahead will be times of integration, as
the various disciplines of engineering and science converge.
High-tech enterprises and academic institutions are at the crossroads.
Successful enterprises will exploit the opportunities provided by today's
emerging technologies and others yet to be discovered. They will better
align themselves with the realities of the agile and flexible engineering
processes, and be more resourceful in the use of new product creation
tools to enhance innovation and reduce development time and manufacturing
costs.
Academic institutions need to better align the engineering curricula,
and the nature of academic experiences, with the challenges and opportunities
that engineering graduates will face in the future market-driven, competitive
environment. Schools must work jointly with government, industry, technology
providers, and professional societies to develop an infrastructure for
facilitating rapid informal and lifelong learning, as well as innovative
approaches of multidisciplinary engineering education that reflect the
new business world and address the needs of society.
|
for further investigation: Readers
interested in pursuing the subjects covered |
Ahmed K. Noor is Eminent Scholar, William E. Lobeck
Professor of Aerospace Engineering, and the director of the Center for
Advanced Engineering Environments at Old Dominion University in Hampton,
Va. He is also adjunct professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering
at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
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© 2005 by The American Society of Mechanical Engineers