Hexagon's Manufacturing Intelligence division has announced the launch of Odyssee A-Eye a new artificial intelligence (AI) tool that gives non-specialists access to powerful digital twins, from AI-based applications that require little data and can predict behavior from images.
Offered by Hexagon's Manufacturing Intelligence division, Odyssee A-Eye is a new artificial intelligence (AI) tool for predicting and optimizing computer-aided engineering (CAE) in many fields, without the preparation of complex models or simulation skills.
Odyssee A-Eye uses advanced Machine Learning techniques to analyze and predict engineering simulations from images, photos and simple data sets. This unique software allows you to generate a dedicated application for a given problem, define links between images and existing simulation results, and predict simulation results from new images. Examples of applications which do not require model preparation or the definition of boundary conditions, complex steps which demand high qualifications: prediction of complex simulations from design photos, cost impact and determination of manufacturing time for a new product based on past experience.
To achieve valid and reliable results with classical AI techniques on images in engineering, expert knowledge and large amounts of data are required to learn and predict behavior. These requirements make these techniques inaccessible to many small companies and non-specialists. The Odyssee A-Eye platform avoids the need to create complex data models, allows users to solve their problems by importing CAD files, images or scalar data, and predicts the results of simulations of Hexagon products by learning from past experience and thus defining a link between parameters (images, CAD files...) and the associated simulations. It thus makes high-performance digital twin functionalities accessible to designers, manufacturing engineers, operators and other non-specialists. These different types of users can then make informed engineering decisions and analyze problems interactively, obtaining results in near-real time.
Here are a few application examples:
- Study the behavior of a car wheel design that strikes obstacles, such as the edge of a curb. Engineers can create a database of different configurations using non-linear finite element simulations, such as design or impact velocity, to understand the effect of various designs. Vehicle design teams can use this information to quickly understand the behavior of a new wheel design, without engineering or CAE knowledge, based on a 2D image alone.
- Predict the lift and drag coefficients of new aircraft airfoils using several 2D images of a new wing design, generating a database of just 16 airfoil simulations from the widely applied definitions of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (Naca). This process usually takes several days, and requires the intervention of a CAE analyst and the use of numerous simulation tools.
- An operator or manufacturer of machined parts can use the Odyssee A-Eye application to predict how long it will take to manufacture a part with a given machine tool and metal, simply by using the database and Step 3D file. It can gather valuable process information for others, for better manufacturing planning and more attractive bidding. With manufacturing process simulation, the same process can be applied to predict the dimensional tolerances or strength of a manufactured part.
Engineers with no background in machine learning can use Odyssee A-Eye to develop effective AI applications to solve a given problem, such as optimizing tire tread design or analyzing computer chip faults. They can then make these available to others who need the information. The new platform integrates all Hexagon's CAE solutions and interfaces seamlessly with existing customer processes, bringing AI within reach of sectors that may not previously have considered it as an engineering tool. Thanks to its accessibility, it can be used by companies without CAE experts or wishing to involve these specialists in other areas, or to validate the final design. With Odyssee A-Eye, a single engineering expert is able to specify an application that helps optimize a design, then feed this data back to the design team and operators for execution.
Roger Assaker, President, Engineering Software Division, Hexagon, comments: "AI is becoming an increasingly interesting tool for design and engineering, and is driving virtual engineering forward. It offers the potential to shorten the complete design phase, which could previously take days or weeks, to minutes or hours, without diminishing the quality of the simulation. What's more, Odyssee A-Eye's user-friendly design makes it easy to integrate this platform into modern engineering practices, bringing a highly advanced process within everyone's reach and delivering results in an accessible format."
The right strategy to boost computer-aided engineering
Hexagon's Manufacturing Intelligence division announced new plans for structure and growth in the field of computer-aided engineering (CAE) at its first simulation-focused conference, HxGN Live Design & Engineering 2021.
Hexagon has been steadily expanding its CAE offering since acquiring MSC Software in 2017. The supplier thus helps its customers push back the boundaries of design and engineering, and analyze manufacturing parameters at an earlier stage during product development, thanks to simulation functionalities and intelligent manufacturing solutions that leverage the full range of ecosystem technologies from Hexagon and its partners.
"Hexagon invests 12 % of its sales directly in R&D, and does the same in CAE to drive innovation. In just four years, we have acquired a portfolio that far exceeds the offerings of companies specializing solely in simulation. In fact, our range covers a variety of needs that a customer may have throughout the product lifecycle, regardless of development approach or sector. What's more, we've developed this range based on a key Hexagon value: openness. There are no "business silos" in our offering, says Roger Assaker, President of Hexagon's Engineering Software Division. Our mission is to help our customers manufacture sustainable products more rationally, right from the design phase. And we want them to be able to do this in the most efficient way in terms of workflows and tool chains."
Hexagon's CAE offering is now structured into eight "Centers of Excellence" (CoEs). Each focuses on a particular type of physics, while enabling greater workflow interoperability through a common collaboration platform, to achieve generative, multiphysics designs with unique data management and complete solutions combining virtual and real data.
Roger Assaker also revealed that artificial intelligence (AI) was one of Hexagon's key cross-functional developments, to deliver physical and data-driven solutions in every CoE. Hexagon applies AI to improve accuracy, harness data and solve problems in seconds that previously required hours or days of intervention. To this end, the supplier draws on its capabilities in finite element and finite volume analysis, and other numerical simulations, without compromising fidelity.
The aim is to help customers design parts that work as intended when manufactured, democratizing CAE by making predictive data available to different types of collaborators (not just designers), introducing simulation at all levels - from the manufacturing floor to management - and multiplying user experiences.
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