Generative design and digital manufacturing: using AI and robots to build lightweight instrument structures

Ryan McClelland

doi:10.1117/12.2646476

3 October 2022 Generative design and digital manufacturing: using AI and robots to build lightweight instrument structures

Ryan McClelland

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 12217, Current Developments in Lens Design and Optical Engineering XXIII; 122170O (2022) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2646476
Event: SPIE Optical Engineering + Applications, 2022, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

Digital Engineering technologies are transforming long-stagnant development processes by applying the tremendous advancements in Information Technology (IT) to classical engineering tasks such as design, analysis, and fabrication of space-flight instrument structures. Generative Design leverages developments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Cloud computing to enable a paradigm shift in the design process, allowing the engineer to focus on defining the requirements and objectives of the design while AI generates optimized designs which comply with the input requirements. Digital Manufacturing allows these complex lightweight designs to be efficiently manufactured by directly fabricating from the resulting 3D models. The development of these two Digital Engineering technologies realizes significant mass savings while simultaneously reducing structure development time from months to days. This paper describes the development of the Evolved Structures process applying these technologies to spaceflight optical instrument structures including an example demonstrating greater than 10x reduction in development time/cost and greater than 3x improvement in structural performance.

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Ryan McClelland "Generative design and digital manufacturing: using AI and robots to build lightweight instrument structures", Proc. SPIE 12217, Current Developments in Lens Design and Optical Engineering XXIII, 122170O (3 October 2022); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2646476

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