Chapter 22
The Future of CAD/CAM

Over the past decade, CAD/CAM has provided hope and excitement about the prospects for the manufacturing industries which have been in sharp contrast with recent reports of slow growth in U.S. productivity. CAD/CAM technology has responded to industry needs for sophisticated interactive graphics, computer-controlled machine tools, intelligent robots, improved inspection techniques, and a host of other innovations to do manufacturing better. It is contingent upon management to make the most of this new technology so that its full promise can be realized in the future.

Our purpose in this concluding chapter is to explore some of the future developments in computer-aided design and manufacturing. Most of the comments are based on trends in the technology which are already clearly recognizable.

Future prospects for CAD/CAM are greatly enhanced by developments in communications, microprocessors, and associated software. Improved communication techniques will result in greater exchange of information among people, machines, and computers. One of the manifestations of better communication will be systems that permit engineers and operating personnel to access powerful computing techniques from a terminal which can be far removed from a large computer. The terminal might be as small as a conventional pocket calculator but will have the capability to communicate with a large computer. Even sophisticated computer applications, such as interactive graphics, are possible. At least one manufacturer has built a pocket-size television prototype that could be used for this purpose. It includes a built-in zoom feature that can be used to enlarge any of the four screen quadrants for close-up viewing.

Another clear trend that will have an impact on CAD/CAM is the greater use of microcomputers and microprocessors to construct a new generation of machines (e.g., machine tools, inspection devices, robots, and computer terminals) with built-in intelligence. The motivation behind this is improved utilization of equipment. For example, in computer-aided design, a greater amount of local intelligence built into the design workstations translates into a larger number of these terminals that can be shared by one minicomputer. The same result occurs in the case of plotters and other peripheral devices. If the plotter contains sufficient local intelligence, it is capable of drawing complicated shapes based on relatively simple concise instructions from the minicomputer. The trends in this direction foretell that, within a few years, all the intelligence and computer power now resident in today’s CAD/CAM systems will be available at every terminal in the system. The use of these intelligent terminals in distributed systems will consistitute the new family of CAD/CAM systems. With the trend toward lower computational costs, future CAD systems based on local intelligence will be cost competitive with current systems. At the same time, the capability of the CPU, enhanced by distributed processing, can be expected to increase considerably. There will also be redundancy in future systems to shift the work load to another part of the system when a component malfunctions or breaks down.

The use of localized intelligence through the use of microprocessor-based systems will also influence manufacturing. The use of intelligent robots, machine tools, and inspection devices, connected to a host computer, will provide an important boost to automation. It will provide greater flexibility in production systems to deal with a variety of different products [1]. Manufacturing and inspection instructions (e.g., part programs) which have been prepared automatically on the host computer can be downloaded to the appropriate machine on the shop floor for execution.

The cost of computer storage continues to drop and this will have implications in CAD/CAM. It will become feasible to store tens of thousands of drawings on-line instead of the limited number characteristic of present systems. At some point in the future, the computer itself may become the principal storage component in file systems rather than relying so heavily on secondary storage. Secondary storage will be relegated principally to a backup fail-safe role.

Graphics display technology is improving and this will affect other areas of operation within a company in addition to CAD. Refresh displays are becoming cost competitive with storage tube displays. The price/performance of raster systems will become more and more favorable. High performance (i.e., high resolution and fast response) is costly in these systems currently, but it is expected that hardware costs will continue to decline in the future. According to Machover [4], raster systems with resolutions of 2000 lines should become common during the middle to late 1980s. By the end of the decade the technology will provide raster tubes with 4000-line resolution. With this level of performance, the raster-type CRT will be the dominant graphics display device during the present decade and perhaps beyond. Competing display technologies include flat panels based on plasma or liquid crystal displays. The advantages offered by flat panel displays over the CRT are [3]:

Much less depth and volume; greater ratio of viewing area to depth

Better linearity and accuracy

Lower voltage required to operate

Potentially greater resolution and contrast

Because of the tremendous market potential in home television, research in flat-panel technology will probably yield commercial products which are eventually competitive with raster-type CRTs.

The use of color and solid modeling in computer graphics will become significant in design and other applications (industrial art, movie making, technical, and other publications). New plotters and hard-copy units with enhanced color capabilities will emerge to support the growth in color and solids.

Another future trend involves the combination of data base management systems (DBMS) with computer-aided design systems. Although fairly common in business applications, the use of DBMS for CAD systems is very limited at the present time. Advances in storage technology will influence this trend.

Voice recognition and vision systems technology will be refined and improved over the next decade. Computer terminals will be equipped to recognize and accept speech input as a means of speeding the input process. We have already discussed speech input for NC part programming in Chapter 9. Future speech input systems will be included in the CAD/CAM environment. As suggested in Chapter 19, vision systems will be used increasingly in computer-aided inspection systems. Vision is also an important emerging technology in robotics. Many future intelligent robots will be furnished with vision capability to perform their various industrial tasks.

Robotics itself is a fast-moving technology. Other sensors besides vision will be included within the capabilities of future robots. Speech recognition, tactile and proximity sensing, variable-pressure grippers, plus the intelligence to use these senses will open up large opportunities for robots, not only in production work, but also in the service industries.

Accompanying the technological innovations and improvements described above, there must also be a change in the way business is done in the manufacturing industries. With new communication techniques, there will be opportunities to have computers from different companies place purchase orders and communicate engineering data and specifications. With improvements in computers, there will be opportunities for nontechnical persons to use the computers. English-like commands will make the machines more user friendly.

Among the many changes in the operations of a manufacturing firm which are forced by the introduction of computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing, there will be a gradual dissolution of the traditional separation between design and production. Indeed, at some time in the distant future, we may look back at the impact of CAD/CAM on industrial progress and conclude that it was the integration of the design and manufacturing functions that was the most significant achievement of this technology.

References

[1] GROOVER, M. P., “The Role of Robotics and Flexible Manufacturing in Production Automation,” Fall Industrial Engineering Conference, Institute of Industrial Engineers, November, 1982.

[2] GROOVER M. P., and ZIMMERS, E. W., JR., “Automated Factories in the Year 2000,” Industrial Engineering, November, 1980, pp. 34–43.

[3] HOBBS, L. C., “Computer Graphics Display Hardware,” IEEE Comptuer Graphics and Applications, January, 1981, pp. 25–39.

[4] MACHOVER, C., “What’s New? What’s to Come?,” in The CAD/CAM Handbook(C. Machover and R. Blauth, Ed.), Computer-vision Corp., Bedford, Mass., 1980, pp.257–260.