Regio Zuid | Applied Artificial Intelligence for Light Weight Construction Engineering

Computer-Aided Design and/or Manufacturing (CAD/CAM) software is the world standard for product design and engineering. Over the past decades, CAD/CAM software has proven to be capable to keep up with the rapid pace of technological development in terms of versatility, complexity and fit to the technological needs of engineers in a multitude of industries. However, CAD/CAM has not shown the level of automation of tasks that is seen in other industries. In many other fields where repetitive tasks are widespread and efficiency improvements occur, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has shown to be a promising technology. Examples of AI applications in other fields include fraud detection in insurance and banking, sample analysis in chemical and medical sciences and traffic information services. \Although AI seems to be a promising technology, its use in product design and engineering has been very limited until now, especially in industries focusing on small series or one-off designs such as the shipbuilding industry. Therefore, the project partners intend to develop an AI-powered software module that allows users to automate specific technical design and engineering tasks in AutoCAD, based on a rule-based inference engine, machine learning technology and genetic algorithms. The solution will initially focus on design and engineering work for one-off and/or small series constructions. The project partners are attempting to achieve three different application levels for the AI that embodies the main innovation in this project: a design support application, a manufacturing support application and a concept for a more futuristic autonomous design application. \At the end of this project, the project partners will deliver a validated AI-powered software module integrated with AutoCAD, empowering users to automate design and engineering tasks for specific one-off or small series construction design. In addition, the partners intend to deliver a similar module for the manufacturing-side of CAD/CAM software. Its goal is to leverage the AI framework to validate whether a 3D-design is suitable for manufacturing equipment (and if not, to provide automated design alteration suggestions to make it suitable). Finally, the project partners intend to develop a module that – in the long run – will be able to fully automate the product design, based on the AI technology developed in this project that is useable for one-off's and small series.\The main driver of this project is MasterShip Software. MasterShip Software has all of the necessary domain knowledge on naval design processes, AutoCAD software and all related information needed in this development project. The other partner in this project, Twentynext has an extensive amount of knowledge and experience on AI, data science and algorithm design. Thus, these two partners form a complementary duo for the innovation developed in this project. Through licensing fees, implementation fees and consultancy revenues, both project partners expect to develop a profitable AI solution that is fit for the shipbuilding industry. \The main location for the project activities will be Eindhoven, where both project coordinator MasterShip Software and project partner Twentynext are located. The project activities are benefitting the southern region of the Netherlands directly as all activities performed as well as all intellectual property being created in this project are related to Eindhoven-based companies. In addition to the regional contribution, this project is closely aligned with the Knowledge and Innovation Agenda on Key Enabling Technologies 2020-2023 (KIA 5). The project contributes to the further development of knowledge, specifically the knowledge of Digital Technologies and Engineering and Fabrication Technologies (ST2 and ST3 of KIA 5).