NewVectors Projects
Digital Body Design System (DBDS)
NewVectors has begun work on a National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Advanced Technology Project (ATP) entitled Digital Body Design System (DBDS). This is a four year effort as part of a joint venture with the Center for Automotive Research (CAR). The joint venture includes auto companies (General Motors, Ford), software developers (EDS), die tooling, foundries, assembly tooling, metrology equipment providers, and other research organizations (Wayne State University and University of Michigan).
The DBDS is a software system that combines a dimensional and finite element simulation engine with agent based problem solving and decision support technology. This will enable the implementation of a virtual functional build methodology where designers and vehicle launch teams will be able to make better decisions faster and understand the quality, cost, and timing impacts of those decisions. Given 50 new vehicle launches by the Big-3 in the next three years, the DBDS has the potential to lower the cost of body assembly by $2.6 billion, increase revenue by $3.16 billion, and produce 160,000 new jobs.
The NewVectors team is focused on the development and prototypical implementation of fundamentally new automated reasoning modules. We hybridize agent-based and case-based reasoning with weak search in unstructured domains to identify problems in the current design of a car body, suggest potential changes, and evaluate these changes with respect to their impact on the problems and the expected cost of implementation.