Cent. Eur. J. Eng. • 1(1) • 2011 • 2-8DOI: 10.2478/s13531-010-0001-6

Central European Journal of Engineering

Emerging CAE technologies and their rolein Future Ambient Intelligence Environments

Vision Paper

Ahmed K. Noor∗

Center for Advanced Engineering EnvironmentsOld Dominion University, Hampton, Virginia, USA

Received 6 July 2010; accepted 27 August 2010

Abstract: Dramatic improvements are on the horizon in Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) and various simulationtechnologies. The improvements are due, in part, to the developments in a number of leading-edge technologiesand their synergistic combinations/convergence. The technologies include ubiquitous, cloud, and petascalecomputing; ultra high-bandwidth networks, pervasive wireless communication; knowledge based engineering;networked immersive virtual environments and virtual worlds; novel human-computer interfaces; and powerfulgame engines and facilities. This paper describes the frontiers and emerging simulation technologies, andtheir role in the future virtual product creation and learning/training environments. The environments will beambient intelligence environments, incorporating a synergistic combination of novel agent-supported visualsimulations (with cognitive learning and understanding abilities); immersive 3D virtual world facilities; developmentchain management systems and facilities (incorporating a synergistic combination of intelligent engineeringand management tools); nontraditional methods; intelligent, multimodal and human-like interfaces; and mobilewireless devices. The Virtual product creation environment will significantly enhance the productivity andwill stimulate creativity and innovation in future global virtual collaborative enterprises. The facilities in thelearning/training environment will provide timely, engaging, personalized/collaborative and tailored visual learning.

Keywords: Computer Aided Engineering • Future Learning Environment • Learnscapes • Ambient Intelligence Environment• Visual simulation • Virtual product creation • Immersive Virtual worlds© Versita Sp. z o.o.

1. Introduction

Virtual Product development systems evolved from theintegration of modeling, simulation, and visualizationfacilities with other product lifecycle management andsoftware tools. These tools have enabled innovation andaccelerated time-to-market. The pressures of creating in-creasingly complex systems, reducing the costs of their ac-

∗E-mail: aknoor@odu.edu

quisition and ownership, and improving their performancehave led to the development of new capabilities to aid inthe analysis, design and manufacture of new products, seefor example [1]. The capabilities can be grouped into threecategories, namely:

1. Computer Aided Engineering (CAE), Digital Simu-lation and prototyping facilities, incorporating vir-tual 3D models, complex high-fidelity simulationsand visualizations, as well as design explorationand optimization tools;

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2. Knowledge-based engineering packages (includ-ing, geometry modeling and agent-supported sim-ulation);

3. Simulation Lifecycle Management (SLM) suites,which encompass four essential functional areas:simulation data management, integration and pro-cess automation, decision support, and distributedcollaboration. They leverage Product Data Man-agement (PDM), Product Lifecycle Management(PLM), and other management technologies.

Figure 1. Product Lifecycle Activities.

The term computer-aided technologies (CAx) is currentlyused to include the various engineering (Computer AidedDesign - CAD, Computer Aided Manufacturing - CAM,Computer Aided Engineering - CAE); management (e.g.,Simulation Lifecycle Management - SLM, Human CapitalManagement - HCM, Customer Relationship Management- CRM, Supply Chain Management - SCM); and othertools (e.g., Enterprise Resource Planning - ERP, Mainte-nance, Repair and Operation - MRO) used in the productlife time (see Figure 1). CAx encompasses a broad rangeof tools, including commercial and available proprietarytools.

As the trends of distributed collaboration, large-scale integration of computing resources, enterprise tools,facilities, and processes continue, a fundamental paradigmshifts will occur in the virtual product creation. Futurehigh-tech systems will be complex systems-of-systems,developed through just-in-time collaborations of globallydistributed teams linked seamlessly by an infrastructureof networked devices, tools, facilities, and processes (ex-tended adaptive enterprise). The effective use of immersive3D virtual worlds can facilitate both the product and pro-cess innovations (through enabling product planners and

developers to visualize, assemble, test and optimize theproduct and production processes).

The present paper describes the frontiers and emerg-ing CAE, simulation and virtual world technologies, andtheir role in the future virtual product creation and learn-ing/training environments.

Figure 2. Length and time scales in Hierarchical Modeling.

2. Frontiers of CAE and SimulationTechnologiesThe frontiers of CAE and simulation technologies, whichare knowledge domains in transition, can be grouped intothe following four categories:

1. Making Simulations Easier, Faster and Robust.Among the various activities of this category are:

• Higher fidelity representation of product’sgeometry, physics, environment and func-tion. This includes the use of multivariateB-splines and NURBS for accurate represen-tation of geometry, and then constructing acoarse mesh of spline elements (which has thepotential of efficiently integrating CAD withFinite Element Analysis) [2],

• Verification and Validation of Digital Simula-tions [3, 4],

• Multiphysics, multilevel and multiscale visualsimulations (see for example [5] and Figure 2),

• Material characterization/material informat-ics (adding an ”informatics” dimension to theanalysis of materials science phenomena, byprocesses which can permit one to gatherand survey complex, multiscale information,see [6, 7] and Figure 3,

• Hybrid/Heterogeneous simulations,

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Emerging CAE technologies and their role in Future Ambient Intelligence Environments

Figure 3. Basic Components of Material Informatics.

• Automating non-creative tasks (e.g., modeland mesh generation) [8].

• Application of knowledge-based engineering(which evolved from automatic generation ofmodels to the capture and reuse of productand process multidisciplinary knowledge tothe building into the parametric and rela-tional design systems the capability, to en-able the components to adjust and morph au-tomatically, see Figure 4).

2. Product Lifecycle Simulation activities, including

• Collaborative, integrated virtual product cre-ation

• Technology, geometry and process modeling

3. Large Scale integration for the extended Enter-prise, this includes collaborative management ofproduct information from inception to retirementthrough development of Integrated Product Man-agement Systems (IPMS), incorporating SimulationLifecycle Management, see [9] and Figure 5.

4. Broadening Applications of CAE and PredictiveSimulations. Among the new applications are:

• Integrated multimodal vehicles (includingNASA’s Personal Air-Land Vehicle concept;DARPA’s submersible aircraft; the PLASVEEchallenge problem that Boeing created forNAFEMS; and the Russian Personal Air-Land Vehicle, see Figures 6 and 7).

• Biologically-inspired systems (structureswith nervous systems, self-healing andself-repairing structures, see Figure 8).

• Biological systems. The simulation of biolog-ical function has advanced enormously since

Figure 4. Past and current applications of KBE.

Figure 5. Integrated Product Management Systems (IPMS).

the early attempts to use computers to un-derstand how biological systems work. Theemergence of effective approaches, the in-crease in computational power, and a rapidexpansion of the field have enabled the sim-ulation of ever more challenging biologicalproblems.

• Cyber-physical systems – which are tight in-tegrations of computation, networking andphysical objects, in which embedded devicesare networked to sense, monitor and controlthe physical world (e.g., civil infrastructure,healthcare, and transportation systems).

• Homeland and border security applications(e.g., simulations of multi-events, multi-threats of the interconnected critical infras-tructure systems).

• Sustainable and renewable energy systems(e.g., simulation of grid operation and integra-tion of wind, solar, geothermal heat and otherrenewable energy resources). As an example,

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the Virtual Nuclear Reactor project fundedby the US department of Energy aims at us-ing advanced simulations to improve reactorsafety, increase reactor power, and extend re-actor life.

a) b)

Figure 6. a) NASA’s Personal Air-Land Vehicle b) DARPA’s sub-mersible aircraft.

a) b)

Figure 7. a) Russian Air-Land Vehicle b) NAFEMS PLASVEE.

a) b)

Figure 8. a) Structures with nervous systems b) Self-repairing struc-tures.

3. Drivers for a Profound Change inthe Role of CAE and SimulationsThere are a number of compelling motivations for a funda-mental paradigm shift in virtual product creation, as wellas for a change in the role of CAE and simulations infuture environments. Among these are:

1. Digital life and the Ambient IntelligenceEnvironments (described in a subsequent sec-tion).

2. Imperatives of Global Economy and Global Vir-tual Enterprises (Examples include the Airbus co-ordinated Value Improvement through a VirtualAeronautical Collaborative Enterprise – VIVACE,see [10]); the changing business models (e.g., De-sign Anywhere, Manufacture Anywhere – DAMA);the extended supply chain; and the need for creat-ing 24/7, on demand, global workforce.

3. Competitive product and marketing innovations, andthe associated demands for mass customization andfor taking virtual product creation into new realms(e.g., US Department of Defense ComputationalResearch and Engineering Acquisition Tools andEnvironment – CREATE).

4. Grand Engineering challenges, including EnergyProduction and Distribution; Environmental Reme-diation and Sustainability (e.g., Climate Changeand Global Warming); National and homeland se-curity; Reverse Engineering of the Brain; and theaccelerating pace of generating new knowledge(faster than the workforce can learn it).

5. Emerging and Frontier technologies that will serveas the power tools of the future in addressinggrand engineering challenges. These include Nan-otechnology, Biotechnology, Information/ Knowl-edge technology, Cognitive Science and technol-ogy, and Synthetic Biology (NBICS).

4. Future Ambient IntelligenceEnvironmentAmbient Intelligence is a vision introduced by the Eu-ropean Information Society Technology Advisory Group(ISTAG) in 2001, based on the convergence of ubiqui-tous computing, ubiquitous communication and intelligentuser-friendly interfaces [11]. An extension/update of thatvision, is to have people living and working in a digitalenvironment, surrounded by intelligent tools, intercommu-nicating devices, and robotic networks, which are seam-lessly integrated and embedded into, the environment andbeam information to each other. All the devices andfacilities will be sensitive and responsive to the people,and anticipatory to their behavior. They can react intelli-gently to the users’ gestures, actions and contexts.

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Emerging CAE technologies and their role in Future Ambient Intelligence Environments

5. Future Virtual Product CreationMajor Components

The major key elements of future Virtual Product Creation(VPC) are:

1. Biological inspiration to provide insight into futuresmart products (i.e., what is designed).

2. Participatory virtual product creation using crowdsourcing, and mobilizing collective intelligence toprovide mass customized personalized products [12].

3. Virtual representation of the entire value chain,from raw materials, to product and production plan-ning, to life time maintenance and remote service.This also include advanced tools and facilities forpredictive product realization, end-to-end simula-tion and virtual testing tools, supply chain man-agement facilities, as well as tools for managingcomplexities and uncertainties.

4. Ambient Intelligence Environment incorporatingvirtual world facilities, powerful collaborativetechnologies and platforms to significantly enhancecreativity and innovation (i.e., how future productsare designed).

5. Natural, intuitive, multimodal and other novel in-terfaces to: a) increase the bandwidth of human-technology interaction, and b) enable faster, betterand more complete access to all types of informa-tion related to the product [13–15].

6. Tools for managing complexities and uncertainties,including handling complex multiphysics data andvarying degrees of model fidelity; emergent synthe-sis tools for handling hierarchical complexity; riskanalysis and optimization tools.

7. Effective VPC frameworks/ infrastructures to enablecapturing the knowledge used in the product cre-ation in an explicit, reusable and traceable format.

Experience gained from Massively Multiplayer On-line Role Playing Games (MMORPG); mashing the virtualworlds with web 2.0/3.0; and the Metaverse concept canbe used to develop a Massively Multiorganization OnlineVirtual Product Creation (MMOVPC) Environment. Suchan environment can provide a high degree of interactivityin the various lifecycle phases of the product, with the var-ious product development/support teams, as well as withthe customers (see Figure 9).

Figure 9. Massively Multiorganization Online Virtual Product Cre-ation (MMOVPC) Environment, with separate islands foreach of the Product Creation Phases.

6. Future Learning and TrainingThe fusion of learning, entertainment and othertechnologies is leading to the integration of learningspaces, platforms, environments and tools into new con-cepts to address the needs of future learners. Amongthese concepts are the 3D Massively Multilearner OnlineLearning Environments (MMOLE), and the Learnscapes.Both concepts are described subsequently.

1. Massively Multilearner Online LearningEnvironment (MMOLE)MMOLE is an adaptation of Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG) tolearning. It uses the Metaverse concept (a visionof an immersing and lifelike virtual world verysimilar to the real world), and combines elementsof Digital Game-Based Learning (DGBL) withthose of Mobile Digital Media, Grassroot video,Open Educational resources, and Virtual worlds(see Figure 10).

2. LearnscapesThis refers to the integration of the continuumof available technology-rich networked platforms,environments and spaces for personal and collabo-rative, formal and informal learning.The major components of Learnscapes are:

• Hyperconnectivity of humans, computing de-vices, information and robotic networks.

• Interactive, Immersive Classrooms with 3DVisual simulation facilities (see Figure 11).

• Blending the immersive Physical and VirtualWorlds (see Figure 12).

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Figure 10. Massively Multilearner Online Learning Environments(MMOLE) concept.

Figure 11. Interactive Immersive Classroom.

3. Intelligence and Automation. This includes expand-ing the role of Intelligent agents, bots and rob-otars. Two of the obvious roles of bots are: a)Replacing people in jobs where the tasks can begiven to autonomous software agents (e.g., ani-mated avatar giving a scripted presentation andanswering questions, using more advanced ques-tion/answering systems than the ones currentlyavailable on the web, without human control), andb) Intelligent Information retrieval and customiza-tion.

The MMOLE and Learnscapes can help in providingthe learners with the digital and cognitive skills neededfor the future technical workforce (see, for example [16]).These skills include:

• Drawing insight from information and extractinglearning from experience.

• Reflecting on the learning (i.e., having metacogni-tive skills, including metamemory, metacomprehen-sion and the ability of self regulation).

• Using analytical, systemic, and creative thinking(expert thinking – having the synthetic ability to

Figure 12. Blended immersive physical world and virtual world withholographic life-like avatars.

recognize relevant patterns in unfamiliar contexts;linking dynamic concept mapping and problem solv-ing in complex domains).

• Having the flexibility to work across disciplinaryand cultural boundaries to generate innovative so-lutions (complex communication – including persua-sive speaking, inductive reasoning, and making in-ferences).

• Becoming competent with a variety of learning re-sources (i.e., using multiple learning sources andperspectives).

• Evaluating information quality/validating informa-tion (having the judgment to distinguish reliablefrom unreliable information).

• Coming up with multiple interpretations and out-comes, when there is more than a single correctanswer.

7. Concluding RemarksThe concept of virtual product creation – digital simula-tion of the various phases of product creation from conceptselection to design, manufacturing, operation, to upgradeor retirement dates back to the 1990s. However, in recentyears significant CAE capabilities and holistic approacheshave been developed for the accurate prediction of theproduct characteristics and functions; simulation of man-ufacturing processes; and product optimization. Today,large and complex multidisciplinary simulations can beperformed by globally distributed teams using grid com-puting technologies and cloud computing. The frontiersof CAE and simulation technologies are described in thepaper.

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Emerging CAE technologies and their role in Future Ambient Intelligence Environments

The significant increase in the CAE and simulationcapabilities can be attributed to the developments in anumber of leading-edge technologies and their syner-gistic combinations/convergence. The technologies in-clude ubiquitous, and petascale computing; ultra high-bandwidth networks, pervasive wireless communication;knowledge based engineering; networked immersive vir-tual environments and virtual worlds; novel human-computer interfaces; and powerful game engines andfacilities.

The pace of development of CAE and simulation ca-pabilities is likely to accelerate in the coming years. Theassociated technologies will serve as the backbone of thefuture Ambient Intelligence environments for product cre-ation and learning/training.

The fusion of Massively Multiplayer Online RolePlaying Games (MMORPG) with virtual worlds andother technologies will lead to new Ambient Intelligenceenvironments for product creation and learning. A Mas-sively Multiorganization Online Virtual Product Creation(MMOVPC) Environment can significantly enhance theproductivity and stimulate creativity and innovation in fu-ture global virtual collaborative enterprises. Future con-cepts for learning environments will address the needs offuture learners, and provide timely, engaging, personal-ized/collaborative, and tailored visual learning. Amongthese concepts are the 3D Massively Multilearner OnlineLearning Environments (MMOLE), and the Learnscapes,which are described in the paper.

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