We are very proud of our long associations with Ford Motor Company. They were generous in their $3million contribution to Berkeley in 1999 and a large part of this money has gone into building their Prototyping Studio. Our projects for Ford have centered on our “CyberCut” rapid-prototyping systems. This research has created the first Internet-based, rapid prototyping service, and it continues to expand in terms of the geometric complexity of the parts that can be fabricated. Our research group is using an approach that was successfully implemented in the electronics industry: specific manufacturing rules and procedures are identified and then “up-loaded” to the designer. Colloquially speaking, designers can then prototype or machine a part with a “skilled craftsperson looking over their shoulder.” This creates a more deterministic design environment for custom manufacturing by rapid prototyping in plastic, or by machining in metal.

More recent work led by Dr. Sundararajan and Danny Antonetti has studied a new phase of Ford related work. Ford has identified excessive gear “whining” noise as a major customer-improvement need. With the goal of improving gear performance, the databases we are creating allow Ford designers to choose the correct combination of gear sets and transmission architectures.