SwRI Wins R&D 100 Awards
Vehicle and powertrain simulation software, 3-D measuring device are among the year's top inventions
RAPTOR®, a modular software program that allows engineers to model and simulate virtual vehicle systems, has received a 2004 R&D 100 award. Also receiving the award is the Dynamic Structured Light 3-D Imaging System, a non-contact, optical system that produces three-dimensional measurements of surfaces and objects. Both were developed by SwRI engineers.
The award, by R&D Magazine, recognizes the 100 most significant technological achievements of the past year. In all, SwRI has collected 28 of the awards since 1971.
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RAPTOR® developers demonstrate the automotive performance simulator software program. |
Co-developed with DaimlerChrysler, RAPTOR can benefit automotive, truck and bus manufacturers, component manufacturers and suppliers.
"RAPTOR offers automotive teams, through co-simulation, the benefit from a parallel design process that will shorten product development time and improve product design and time to market," said Scott McBroom, a manager in the Vehicle Systems Research Department in SwRI's Engine, Emissions and Vehicle Research Division.
RAPTOR software is an open-architecture tool that facilitates parallel computer-aided engineering (CAE) of vehicles. Parallel CAE allows engineers working in different software packages to use the same reference vehicle models in a co-simulation environment. SwRI has successfully demonstrated the use of RAPTOR for co-simulation and hardware-in-the-loop vehicle component testing and development.
RAPTOR stores and manages data used for vehicle simulations to provide users both synchronization and configuration management of models, component data and simulation results and to simplify the selection of component data used in simulations. With RAPTOR, different engineering teams within a vehicle development program share a common set of models and model data.
Similar programs can be developed to evaluate new technologies in a virtual environment or in hardware-in-the-loop applications.
SwRI engineers in the Automation and Data Systems Division invented a system that provides precise, three-dimensional measurement of surfaces without contacting the object being measured.
The Dynamic Structured Light (DSL) 3-D Imaging System projects a rotating pattern of light and shadow onto an object and records the image on video, then analyzes the way the shadows move over the surface to detect imperfections to within one thousandth of an inch. Using different lenses, it can measure scratches on a coin or hail damage on an airplane flap.
The Dynamic Structured Light 3-D Imaging System can create an accurate surface measurement of complex three-dimensional objects, like the vertebra shown here, without contact. |
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"DSL is just one application of the Institute's extensive work with machine vision," said DSL inventor Dr. Ernest Franke, an Institute engineer in the Automation and Data Systems Division. "With DSL we can provide a precision tool for manufacturing, reverse engineering or any other application where very precise digital representation of a surface is needed."
In 2003, NASA used the patent-pending DSL system to measure damage to heat-resistant tiles from impacts by insulating foam during tests following the loss of the space shuttle Columbia.
This year's awards will be presented Oct. 14, 2004, in Chicago.
Contact McBroom for further technical information about RAPTOR at (210) 522-3454 or gstecklein@swri.org, or visit raptor.swri.org. Visit dsl3dimaging.swri.org for further technical information about DSL.
Published in the Summer 2004 issue of Technology Today®, published by Southwest Research Institute. For more information, contact Joe Fohn.
