John L. Salmon

Capabilities of Current Generation Virtual Reality to Enhance the Design Process

In the past few years, there have been some significant advances in consumer virtual reality (VR) devices. Devices such as the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Leap Motion Controller, and Microsoft Kinect R are bringing immersive VR experiences into the homes of consumers with much lower cost and space requirements than previous generations of VR hardware. These new devices are also lowering the barrier to entry for VR engineering applications. Past research has suggested that there are significant opportunities for using VR during design tasks to improve results and reduce development time. This work reviews the latest generation of VR hardware and reviews research studying VR in the design process. Additionally, this work extracts the major themes from the reviews and discusses how the latest technology and research may affect the engineering design process. We conclude that these new devices have the potential to significantly improve portions of the design process. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4036921]

Systems optimization of charging infrastructure for electric vehicles

The large advances in new battery technology has made Electric Vehicles (EV) more attractive and feasible. As the cost and weight of batteries decreases, and the EV range increases, more individuals and companies will consider investing in these vehicles. However, one potential obstacle is the lack of ubiquitous charging locations. Many individuals would be uncomfortable purchasing a vehicle which limits longer trips and constrains their travel close to charging stations. To overcome this obstacle, a specific market segment, taxi drivers, which make many shorter trips typically near large cities, could be early adopters of EV technology and help justify and establish the charging infrastructure which could be used by others later on. With a large potential investment, this system and infrastructure needs to be analyzed and optimized for performance, cost, and other stakeholder objectives. This paper investigates the location and number of charging stations that would be required to meet the demands of a subset of the New York City taxi cab system. An operations model is developed applying the fare data available from the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission to evaluate the impact on the schedule and performance of individual taxi drivers with EVs. Next, thousands of taxi driver shifts are simulated within the system defined by various numbers and locations of charging stations. Following the initial exploratory assessment, optimization of the system is implemented, from which the result could be used to inform city officials and stakeholders on key decisions during a system implementation phase.

Systems feasibility study for implementing electric vehicles into urban environments

Electric Vehicles (EV) are a rising alternative to standard combustion vehicles because of their energy cost savings and reduced carbon emissions. However, EVs come with limitations such as limited driving range and potentially long recharge times. The purpose of this study is to determine the feasibility of implementing an electric vehicle system into an urban environment with a high population density. Using data provided by the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission, models are developed and generated to simulate driver shifts and analyze system level impacts from EVs on driver behavior. The models evaluate the number of charge events over the course of a shift and calculate the potential revenue lost to missed fares during charge intervals. Across the system, the results indicate that for a majority of NYC taxi drivers, EVs can be implemented without significant changes in driver behavior, while providing an economic and environmental advantage over current combustion vehicles. These preliminary findings can be used to support implementing such a system in urban environments and these models could be used as a template toward analyzing EV taxi potential in other cities.

Identifying Mode Shapes of Turbo-Machinery Blades Using Principal Component Analysis and Support Vector Machines

Manually identifying mode shapes generated from finite element solvers images is an expensive task. This paper proposes an automated process to identify mode shapes from gray-scale images of compressor blades within a jet-engine. This work introduces mode shape identification using principal component analysis (PCA), similar to approaches in facial and other recognition tasks in computer vision. This technique calculates the projected values of potentially linearly correlated values onto P-linearly orthogonal axes, where P is the number of principal axes that define a subset space. Classification was done using support vector machines (SVM). Using the PCA and SVM algorithm, approximately 5300 training images representative of 16 different modes were used to create a classifier. The classifier achieved on average 98% accuracy when tested using a test set of approximately 2000 images given P = 70. The results suggest that using digital images to perform mode shape identification can be achieved with high accuracy. Potential generalization of this method could be applied to other engineering design and analysis applications.

Exploration and evaluation of CAD modeling in virtual reality

ABSTRACTVirtual reality (VR) technology has experienced a recent surge in popularity over the past few years and is finding more applications beyond entertainment. Three dimensional modeling is an application in which integration with VR technology is still in the development stage. The focus of this research is to evaluate the feasibility for computer-aided design in VR and to identify the best set of features for virtual reality modeling and practices in this new domain. A platform for testing CAD in VR is developed through the integration of CAD software with a game engine and compared against traditional CAD methods through testing. Modeling capabilities included previews, creating solid rectangular prisms and spheres, lock to grid, and cuts of similar shapes. User testing with four different models (i.e. chair, maze, truck, sculpture) and survey responses suggest respectively that design in virtual reality promoted greater creativity in modeling, allowed for a greater feature creation rate, and that ...

A comparative analysis of computer-aided design team performance with collaboration software

ABSTRACTFor the past several years, the BYU CAD Lab has been developing collaborative computer-aided design (CAD) software. As this software is being developed, industry seeks to better understand ...

Hybrid state transactional database for product lifecycle management features in a multi-engineer synchronous heterogeneous CAD environment

ABSTRACTAs interoperability between Computer Aided Design (CAD) systems becomes a possibility, a need arises for a way for the Neutral Parametric Canonical Form (NPCF), as designed at the BYU Site of the NSF Center for e-Design, to be integrated with Product Lifecycle Management (PLM). The only method currently available to users to sync with a PLM system at this time would be to choose one CAD system and create files based off of the NPCF data then save those part files in the PLM system. This database expansion to the NPCF allows the NPCF to hold the entire part history as well as enable future work revision history and configuration management. Enforcing referential integrity within the database allows for part data to never get corrupted and the NPCF allows any CAD system with the appropriate plug-ins to read the uncorrupted data.

Methods for determining the optimal number of simultaneous contributors for multi-user CAD parts

ABSTRACTThe development of multi-user CAD (MUCAD) tools has opened up exciting new opportunities and applications. The capability for multiple users to simultaneously model and design a CAD part has far-reaching potential. However, many basic questions remains unanswered, such as how many users should work together on a given part. This research proposes and develops a set of methods to determine the optimal number of users for a given part within a MUCAD environment, based on the characteristics of the part itself. Two candidate models are evaluated with a set of 60 experiments with design teams composed of different numbers of users. The models show modest correlations with the test data while more-refined models are explored to improve predictive power. On the other hand, highly significant correlations between the ability to predict completion time and multi-user team size were identified in the experimental data. Observations regarding the speed and quality of MUCAD teams are also made with future ar...

Associative CAD references in the neutral parametric canonical form

ABSTRACTDue to the multiplicity of computer-aided engineering applications used in industry, interoperability between programs has become increasingly important. A 1999 study by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) estimated that inadequate interoperability between the original engineering manufacturers (OEM) and their suppliers cost the US automotive industry over

Comparing Transparent Devices to Current Educational Methods for Enhancing Comprehension of Product Functionality

1 billion per year, with the majority spent fixing data after translations. The Neutral Parametric Canonical Form (NPCF) prototype standard developed by the BYU Site of the NSF Center for e-Design offers a solution to this problem by enabling real-time collaboration between heterogeneous systems while preserving design intent. The NPCF is implemented within a SQL database and defines the schema both for neutral features and for the parameters defining the inter-feature relationships and associations.