C-SOPS

The overall challenges in integrated systems science deal with the identification of critical material and/or process parameters that should be monitored for control, sensing the “right” information we need in real-time, developing robust reduced-order models that use real-time data to provide decision support for design, control, optimization, and exceptional events management. Additional components include an informatics framework to keep track of all the data-information-knowledge in the system, and an integrated system of hardware and software that can interface with the process and execute all this efficiently. The specific key challenges are: (i) the lack of analytical methods with sufficient resolution, speed, and reliability for measuring micro- and nano-structure properties in a “noisy” environments, (ii) lack of a systematic framework to store, access, manipulate, manage and use enormous amounts of complex and varied data, information, and models for optimal, real-time decision-making in design, control, and operations, (iii) lack of an integrated system of hardware and software elements for efficient and robust real-time execution of model-based algorithms for control and operations of continuous processes, (iv) lack of understanding of process behavior and its response to operating conditions and design parameter changes.  

Thrust D projects balance the need to advance fundamental issues in manufacturing systems science with the need to develop the technological applications of these methods in the various test-beds. The model development has focused on required unit operations such as feeding, mixing, blending, roller compaction, milling, tableting etc. The tools developed in this thrust cut across the different scales of product development and manufacturing, incorporating the structure-composition-properties models developed in Thrusts A-C, and across the three test-beds.