This project will investigate and develop novel and interlinked measurement-enabled technologies for realising the next generation of factories for the "Assembly, Integration and Test" (AIT) of high value products. The vision is for the widespread adoption and interlinked deployment of novel, measurement-based techniques in factories, to provide machines and parts with aspects of temporal, spatial and dimensional self-awareness, enabling superior machine control and parts verification. The title "Light Controlled Factory" reflects the enabling role of optical metrology in future factories. The scientific and technological challenges that would need to be addressed via this research to realise this vision include: (a) Future AIT factories require product specific customisation of assembly, ultimately adapting the condition of assembly for each part, whilst ensuring assembly integrity and high process yield. The research challenges are; (i) to develop methods using accurate high frequency measurement data to control the position and orientation of parts in real-time, and (ii) to integrate semi-finishing processes with assembly, such as machining, without adversely impacting the spatial fidelity of parts and machines. (b) Within AIT factories, the effect of gravitational deflection and the impact of the environmental thermal gradient on large components and tooling structures can be significant and larger than the assembly tolerances. In such cases the dominant dimensional uncertainty source is often the effect of the environment on the parts and the structure of assembly equipment. Currently, industry has no robust mechanisms for identifying the impact of environmental uncertainty sources when seeking to demonstrate assembly conformance to design, with major consequences in terms of product verification. (c) In order to integrate, control in real time and verify heterogeneous processes within an AIT factory it is essential to develop novel metrology networks that are scalable, affordable and can be used to create measurement-enabled production processes of superior process capability, and also to verify parts. The research challenges include; the real time fusion of measurement and uncertainty data from multiple systems, the mitigation of environmental effects through local and large volume measurement, and the definition of generic network design principles underpinned by algorithms for measurement uncertainty. The project is important to the UK as the technologies deployed relate to the "systems modelling and integrated design/simulation" national competency and address the "flexible and responsive manufacturing" strategic theme according to TSB's document entitled 'A Landscape for the Future of High Value Manufacturing in the UK'. Strategically this proposal fits into the Manufacturing the Future theme of EPSRC. The review of the EPSRC portfolio reveals that this proposal is distinct from previous and current research. The timeliness of the proposal is due to its building on the latest research of the three Universities, utilising current research from NPL into high-accuracy, flexible optical metrology and making use of state of the art vendor systems in large volume metrology. The combined effect of all these factors is that the underpinning knowledge, understanding and technologies required for this ambitious research are now in place, reducing research risk. Moreover, the project is timely in satisfying the industrial needs for better factory "ramp-up" flexibility and 100% product compliance with specifications at zero or minimum extra cost for high value products due to increasingly demanding customers and safety legislators. The Research Programme comprises five interrelated Research Topics (RTs) that will be carried out throughout the duration of the Grant. The RTs correspond to the research objectives and their work packages that include deliverables and milestones.

The EPSRC Centre in Coupled Whole Systems is a National Centre, hosted by Cranfield and Durham Universities. Successful high technology UK manufacturing companies are offering a range of interlinked high value products and services. High value products are typically technology intensive, expensive and reliability critical requiring engineering services (e.g. maintenance, repair and overhaul) throughout the life cycle e.g. aircraft engine, high-end cars, railway vehicle, wind turbines and defence equipment. Competitiveness is then dependent on many factors, such as design innovation for the product and added value through the services and minimisation of whole life cost. These products typically combine five major domains (structural, mechanical, electrical, electronic and software sub-systems) to achieve the required functionality and performance. These products are referred to as Coupled Whole Systems. The overall vision of the proposed EPSRC Centre is to develop knowledge, technology and process demonstrators, novel methodologies, techniques and the associated toolsets to provide the capability for the concept design of the coupled whole system based on system design for engineering services.After discussions with the industrial partners, KTNs and all the academics involved in the Centre, it has been decided that the Centre will start with a set of five projects. The projects are of three types, the first one identifies current challenges in the systems design across multiple sectors, the second set of three projects is in TRL levels 2-3 and addresses three major industrial challenges for engineering services across the sectors. This research will develop technology and process demonstrators, design rules and standards to evaluate the system design in order to reduce the engineering services cost later in the life cycle. The third type is more long term and represents TRL levels 1-2. This project will develop technologies that could reduce the need for maintenance and therefore reduce the whole life cost of a high value product. The five initial projects are as follows:Project 1: Study of cross sector challenges in coupled whole systems design (6 mths)Project 2: Reduction of no-fault found (NFF) through system design (3 yrs)Project 3: Characterisation of in-service component feedback for system design (3 yrs)Project 4: Improvement of System Design Process for whole life cost reduction (2 yrs)Project 5: Self-healing technologies for electronic and mechanical components and subsystems (3 yrs)All the initial projects and future ones will use the facilities of a Whole Systems Studio at Cranfield. The Studio will provide instrumentation and facilities to perform experiments in support of the initial and future research projects and develop technology and process demonstrators. The Studio will have a networked computing facility with a data highway based on the OSys integration platform. The platform will initially allow other facilities such as the 3D scanning facility from GOM, Electronics Lab from Durham, IVHM Centre at Cranfield and MRO Shop at Rolls Royce, Derby to be connected with the Studio. In future, other research groups and laboratories will be given access to the Studio as well.The core partners of the Centre are Rolls-Royce, BAE Systems, Bombardier Transport, ARM and the Ministry of Defence (MoD). The partners represent aerospace, defence, railways and electronics sectors. There are 13 other industrial partners representing user companies from defence, information technology (IT), machine tool, and energy sectors and knowledge transfer networks (aerospace, energy and electronics), software vendor, media partner and trade organisations as dissemination partner to support the growth of the Centre.