When nothing is constant but change: Adaptive and sensorial materials and their impact on product design

Abstract

This article is the preface to the Special Issue of the Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures on occasion of the Symposium A53 'MEMS/NEMS for Sensorial and Actorial Materials' held at the Euromat 2011 Conference, Montpellier, France, September 12-15, 2011. The authors outline the concept of material-integrated sensing and intelligence, which is summarized in the term sensorial materials. Such materials are understood to incorporate sensing, signal and data processing as well as communication facilities to autonomously evaluate their own condition and/or their environment. To achieve these capabilities, bottom-up as well as top-down approaches are currently being discussed. The latter is highlighted in this work. Research efforts towards it range from materials science to sensor and microelectromechanical system (MEMS)/nanoelectromechanical system (NEMS) technology, microelectronics and computer science and were covered in the underlying Euromat symposiu m. As a specific aspect linked to the envisaged autonomy and a resulting adaptivity, for example, of internal self-representation and data interpretation, potential consequences for engineering design are sketched

Industrial Agents and Distributed Agent-Based Learning

“…Furthermore, there was a significant increase of the sensor density in sensor networks [1], shown in Figure 1. Ongoing miniaturization of sensors and new micro-system technologies enable the integration of sensor networks in materials and technical structures [2]. In contrast to generic computer networks, Material-integrated sensor networks pose specific requirements and constraints of the information processing regarding resources, computational latency, energy consumption, and robustness.…”

Cloud-Based Automated Design and Additive Manufacturing: A Usage Data-Enabled Paradigm Shift

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Multifunctional carbon nanotube-based nano-composites for aerospace applications

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