GSCOP RUB LAB 2022

Modeling and Management of Intelligent Products Life Cycle

Title : Modeling and Management of Intelligent Products Life Cycle

Supervisor(s) : Frédéric Noel - (G-SCOP Laboratory - INPG Grenoble, VISIONAIR scientific coordinator)

PHD school : ED d'informatique à Lyon

Starting date :  septembre 2013

Financing - Context - Partnerships :

Description of the subject :

The last evolutions of mobile and ubiquitous informatics open new opportunities for the perception of products and their associated models. Distributed information allows collaborative processes for modeling or enhancing products along their lifecycle. These collaborations expect also an enhanced communication between products and their environment.

This thesis will focus on intelligent and portable products that could be qualified as intelligent products (clothes, shoes and other devices) and used in various applications integrating networks of sensors to interact with their environment (ie. with intelligent textiles based on retro-reflective fibers enabling communication).

The expected functions for a new intelligent product will be integrated by the end user in a co-design mode. Design, component selection, material and sensors supply, virtual prototyping, as well as production planning and service integration, define a highly collaborative process for the involved partners An intelligent product, highly oriented towards the end-user, embeds newest technologies integrating distributed digital/sensorial units. This evolution will come with a major change within the product life management and opens new perspectives for agile production systems to serve end-user, with a great impact on environment and cost-efficiency.

This thesis will propose (A) a global modeling methodology for such intelligent products (B) adapted metaphors for intuitive investigation of intelligent products that facilitates their wide adoption.

(A) Development of a global methodology for an intelligent productmodel

As an integrated and complex product, a intelligent product contains devices able to continuously measure and filter the information and comunicate with users. Intelligent products expect inter-functional interaction at every level, from modelization and digital simulation up to physical mock-up and tests. Product lifecycle management information systems are necessary to support testing and realizing and tracing various digital prototypes and their synchronization with physical prototypes. The development methodology will consider the new requirements. The targeted developments are :

  •  A state of the art study on some emerging systems/approches (Smart Systems, Embedded systems, Cyber Physical Systems, etc)
  • definition of the architecture and data for the system to satisfy the specified requirements,
  • An efficient link between the lifecycle phases (design, development and tests, production, use, etc) with an efficient underlying configuration management.

(B) Intuitive interaction techniques for collaborative design of intelligent products.

Since intelligent products evolve with their use, the integration of the end-user is a major issue. As the end-user cannot participate in the design through expert models, more natural interactions with the digital mock-up are expected. A virtual anticipation of the behavior of the future users is a specific issue that will be under focus to demonstrate the the ability of the architectures and models mentioned previously. The intuitive interaction will be enabled through techniques of virtual and augmented reality to enable the end-user practice of a digital mockup on a quite natural mode. Criteria to assess the products before the deployment on the market will be proposed. A virtual simulator supported by virtual/augmented reality will be of a fundamental added value.

The thesis is funded by ARC8 « Industrialisation et Sciences du Gouvernement » of the Rhône-Alps region in France and will take benefit of a use case provided by economic actors from this region. Synergy with the European VISIONAIR infrastructure will be made.

Keywords :

Intelligent product, PLM ; Configuration Management ; Intuitive interaction, User Centred Design

Contact(s) :

Abdelaziz Bouras (DISP Laboratory - Université Lumière Lyon 2)

abdelaziz.bouras@univ-lyon2.fr

Frédéric Noel (G-SCOP Laboratory - INPG Grenoble, VISIONAIR scientific coordinator)

frederic.noel@grenoble-inp.fr