BCAM obtains a FET Open grant from the European Commission to revolutionise computer-aided design

• The consortium of institutions that will work on this project is made up of both academic entities and companies, from all over Europe

A consortium coordinated by the Basque Center for Applied Mathematics - BCAM has obtained a Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) Open grant from the European Commission to work on the ADAM^2 project that aims to revolutionize computer-aided design (CAD). FET Open – now a part of the European Innovation Council (EIC) Pathfinder Pilot - supports early-stage, science and technology research by consortia exploring novel ideas for radically new future technologies that challenge current paradigms with the aim to generate societal and economic innovations. By having obtained this funding, BCAM now manages all the types of projects granted by the Horizon 2020 programme -ERC, ITN, RISE, IF, E-INFRA and FET- which represents a great achievement for the centre in terms of scientific excellence.

The objective of ADAM^2 (Analysis, Design, And Manufacturing using Microstructures) is to question five decades of traditional paradigms in computer-aided design (CAD) by introducing microstructures in the design, analysis and manufacturing cycle. This change has the potential to completely revolutionize geometric CAD by introducing essential volumetric representations, making an unprecedented leap in the quality of manufactured goods.

Specifically, ADAM^2 proposes to combine user-guided shape modelling using microstructures, followed by validation and structural optimization using physical process simulation, and finalized by physical realizations via additive and hybrid manufacturing and its subsequent validation. Interdisciplinary research will be fundamental to this very end; ADAM^2 will span several research areas, namely computer-assisted geometric design and computer graphics (computer science), isogeometric analysis and numerical modelling (applied mathematics), and hybrid CNC machining (mechanical engineering)”.

Under the premise of connecting research topics with industrial challenges, the consortium that will work on this project is made up of both academic and industrial entities, distributed throughout Europe. These include, in addition to BCAM, the Israel Institute of Technology (Technion), the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), the University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU), Technische Universität Wien (TUW), the Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et Automatique (INRIA) and the companies Trimek, Stratasys (Israel) and Hutchinson (France). At BCAM the project will be led by Ikerbasque Research Associate and Ramón y Cajal researcher Michael Barton.

The results of this project will lead to scientific-technological development that will have an impact on the European computer-aided design markets of 2,000 million euros per year and on the manufacturing market of 24 billion euros per year. The results of ADAM^2 are also expected to significantly reduce the use of heavy materials and consequently to lighten the manufactured objects.