Research groups
From DDL Wiki
This page lists research groups and laboratories whose research is related to DDWiki topics. If you see a relevant group that is missing, please add it.
Automated Design Laboratory
Institution: University of Texas at Austin
Director: Matthew Campbell
The Automated Design Lab is a research lab at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin dedicated to establishing new computer-based methods and design tools to further increase the speed and quality of engineering design. By combining engineering innovations with methods from computer science and cognitive psychology, we are able to develop automated tools capable of solving design problems independent of a user, as well as interactive tools that bring the user and the computer together as a symbiotic design team. Our current research focuses on innovating the representation, generation, evaluation and guidance stages of computational design synthesis.
Center for Innovation in Product Development
Institution: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Director: Steven Eppinger
The Center for Innovation in Product Development (CIPD) unites industry representatives with leading research faculty to investigate the end-to-end product development process—from engineering concept to market launch and beyond. Founded in 1996 as a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center, CIPD pursues pioneering research into product development theory and practice.
Decision Systems Laboratory
Institution: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Director: Thurston, Deborah
The focus of DSL research is on developing new methods for integrating environmental impacts, production costs, product performance and quality into concurrent design and manufacturing analysis.
Design Decision Support Laboratory
Institution: University of Maryland
Director: Shapour Azarm
Current research areas of interest lie in optimal design of mechanical engineering systems, including multi-criteria and multi-disciplinary design optimization and decision making
Design Decisions Laboratory
Institution: Carnegie Mellon University
Director: Jeremy Michalek
The Design Decisions Laboratory develops theories and tools to understand and assist decision-making in design and product development. The group is interested in the preferences and economics that drive design tradeoff decisions as well as the impact of those decisions on public and private stakeholders. Drawing upon research in economics, marketing, psychology, and public policy as well as engineering and design optimization, the lab pursues three primary thrust areas:
- Provide designers with a better understanding of how diverse consumer preferences and economics affect their decisions so that designs can be optimized with business objectives, such as profitability, in mind;
- Provide policymakers with methods to identify and predict probable market design responses to regulation and identify potential impacts on producers, users, society, and the environment; and
- Develop fundamental theory and mathematical algorithms with application to systems, design, and the above objectives.
Design of Open Engineering Systems
Institution: University at Buffalo
Director: Kemper Lewis
At the DOES laboratory research is being conducted to promote and advance the state-of-the-art in multidiciplinary design optimization and modern design theory.
The Laboratory is part of the Dept of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering at the State University of New York at Buffalo and affiliated with the New York State Center for Engineering Design and Industrial Innovation (NYSCEDII)
Engineering Design and Optimization Group
Institution: Penn State
Director: Timothy Simpson
The Engineering Design and Optimization Group conducts research in a variety of areas:
- Simulation-Based Design
- Finite Element Methods
- Product Family Design
- Internet-Based Mass Customization
- Robust Optimization
- Topology Optimization
- Compliant Mechanisms
- Smart Structures and Actuators
- Design of Smart Tools for Minimally Invasive Surgery
- Design of Experiments and Metallurgy
Enterprise Systems Laboratory
Institution: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Director: Harrison Kim
Our major research interests are in identifying and studying the fundamentals of the product development and product planning. We build our approaches on analytical methodologies based on the foundations of optimization theories and mathematical programming.
Typical applications involve large-scale systems such as automotive vehicles, aerospace systems, enterprise-wide product planning that composes system-of-systems.
Green Design Institute
Institution: Carnegie Mellon University
Director: Lester Lave
The Green Design Institute is a major interdisciplinary research effort to make an impact on environmental quality through green design. The central idea of the institute is to form partnerships with companies, government agencies and foundations to develop pioneering design, management, manufacturing, and regulatory processes that can improve environmental quality and product quality while enhancing economic development.
Carnegie Mellon researchers are working to address the regulatory issues that shape the global marketplace. Our research partners will have access to policy and management tools for environmentally conscious manufacturing and product and process design, as well as opportunities to explore comprehensive solutions to problems such as hazardous emissions, use of toxic materials and inefficient energy usage.
The institute has roots in two existing Carnegie Mellon centers: The Engineering Design Research Center, an internationally recognized NSF center of excellence established in 1986 to support more efficient and cost-effective designs in industry; The Environmental Institute, a university-wide organization bringing together faculty, research staff and students to work on environmental and educational activities.
Through the Green Design Institute, we are solving problems and building tools that help businesses accomplish more with less. Our focus is on developing practical pollution prevention technologies and lowering costs, by recycling scarce resources, using fewer raw materials and creating better products. Creative engineering and science can produce products and processes that both cost less and pose fewer threats to workers, consumers and the environment. By joining in partnership with Carnegie Mellon, businesses will gain the tools they need to be competitive in the new environmental era.
Institute for Complex Engineered Systems
Institution: Carnegie Mellon University
Director: Gary Fedder
The Institute for Complex Engineered Systems (ICES) is a strategic initiative for pursuing multidisciplinary research on Complex Systems both within the College of Engineering and across colleges at Carnegie Mellon. ICES researchers seek "to develop enabling technologies and systems that seamlessly connect people with their physical and information environments."
To accomplish this vision, research within ICES is based on the following themes: connecting people to people through information; connecting computers to computers; and connecting computers to the world. Technical labs and core competencies that support the above themes are:
Laboratories & Centers:
- Advanced Infrastructure Systems (AIS)
- Bioengineering Technologies Laboratory
- Center for Nano-enabled Device and Energy Technologies (CNXT)
- Center for Sensed Critical Infrastructure Research (CenSCIR)
- Embedded and Reliable Information Systems (ERIS)
- Laboratory for Interactive Computer Systems (LINCS)
- Thermal Management and Electronic Cooling
Core Competencies:
- Education
- Engineering Design Research Center (EDRC)
- Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) and Mechatronics
Integrated Design Automation Laboratory
Institution: Northwestern University
Director: Wei Chen
The Integrated DEsign Automation Laboratory (IDEAL) is one of the research laboratories in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Northwestern University .
The focus of the research work done at IDEAL under the direction of Dr. Wei Chen, is to develop rational design methods based on mathematical optimization techniques and statistical methods for use in complex design and manufacturing problems. The complexity is considered from various aspects, such as the large number of physical interrelated elements, the multilevel details of information, the multidisciplinary organization, and the computationally expensive design simulations. Detailed descriptions of research areas and current projects are provided.
Integrated Design Innovation Group
Institution: Carnegie Mellon University
Director: Jonathan Cagan
The IDI group focuses on the early design process. Our interests span from computational tools and theories to product development practice which work in concert to advance the state of the art in product creation.
Computational work on design conceptualization and product layout emphasizes computational representation, generation, and optimizing search of the design space. Our premise is that computational tools must support a design process modeled by lateral exploration, followed by a focused investigation of one or more good designs. Based on this premise, much of our work has concentrated on stochastic search techniques and cognitive mechanisms, and various grammatical representations to model, generate, and move within the design space. The result is a merging between design theory, artificial intelligence, cognition and operations research, giving a unique approach to addressing the conceptual design problem. Our work is used in industrial settings and has been commercialized by DesignAdvance Systems.
Our other area of focus is in user-centered design and integrated product development practice. We work closely with colleagues in industrial design, business and psychology in creating new methods for product design that incorporate ethnographic approaches and cross-functional teams. Our work has evolved from a synergistic relationship with industry, having worked with a variety of companies including Ford, International Truck & Engine, Procter & Gamble, Respironics, Alcoa, General Motors, Whirlpool, RedZone Robotics, DesignAdvance Systems, and Lubrizol, among others.
Optimal Design Laboratory
Institution: University of Michigan
Director: Panos Papalambros
The Optimal Design Lab is dedicated to research in design methods and tools that improve the design process and the quality of designed artifacts. Our design process paradigm uses decision-making models to describe design alternatives, and mathematical methods that search the design space for the best design among all possible design options – the "optimal" design.
More recently our research has focused on design methods for large complex systems, including decomposition and coordination strategies, surrogate model approximations, product families, and integrated artifact design and control. In the context of a quantitative approach to product development, we study how engineering design interfaces with industrial design, art, conceptual design, artificial intelligence, finance, organizational design, marketing, and psychology. Application domains include automotive design, specifically hybrid and alternative vehicles, structural design, electromagnetic design, specifically antennas, and architectural design.
Whatever term of fashion may have come upon us over time to describe our research, our commitment has remained the same: to study design as a process conducted by humans aiming at improving the human condition, and to employ a pragmatic but rigorous approach as best we know how.
Product Development Research Laboratory
Institution: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Director: Yassine, Ali
The PD lab supports research leading to improved understanding, education, and management of complex product development systems.
Systems Realization Laboratory
Institution: Georgia Tech
Director: Farrokh Mistree
The Systems Realization Laboratory was founded by four faculty (Farrokh Mistree, Janet Allen, Bert Bras and David Rosen) who all came to Georgia Tech in 1992. Chris Paredis joined us in 2002. We have a very strong research program, but being at an educational institution, we assert that our primary mission is to provide an opportunity for students to learn how to rise to their full potential. That is why we view and want students as colleagues - colleagues who have a dream and a passion to make a difference and want to be the thought leaders of tomorrow.
