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Chair’sMessage

The past five yearshave been an

exciting time to serveon the ExecutiveCommittee of ASME’sComputers and

Information in Engineering Division.Although the renaming of the Divisionfrom Computers in Engineering toComputers and Information in Engineeringoccurred more than five years ago, theevolution in focus associated with thechange has taken place gradually in thattime. New Division Constitution andBylaws were developed and approved, theDivision structure has matured withsome Technical Committees changingand new ones being created, and leader-ship has firmly embraced the Division’snew emphasis on information technologyas an essential element of the mechanicalengineering profession. One of the moreexciting changes associated with the CIE

Division’s activities has been the launchingof a new ASME Transactions journal, theJournal of Computing and InformationScience in Engineering (JCISE), which isnow in its fifth year of publication. Andthis year, the CIE Division is preparingto celebrate its 25th anniversary.

The coming years will continue to beinteresting times for CIE given theContinuity and Change Transition that istaking ASME into a new phase as a pro-fessional society. Changes in organization,processes, and fundamental philosophyregarding roles and responsibilities of dif-ferent components of the Society willaffect how all of the elements of ASMEdo business, including the CIE Division.

From the perspective of the CIEDivision in particular, I view this as a keyto identifying and reemphasizing theways in which the Division can providevalue to ASME membership. This, inturn, is an important requirement fordeveloping greater interest in CIE amongASME members, and increased engage-ment by members in Division activities.

The Division has been working to takesteps in this direction.

At the leadership level, diversity amongmembers of the CIE Division’s ExecutiveCommittee has been viewed as an impor-tant part of representing the interests ofdifferent constituents and stakeholdergroups among the broader membership;the CIE Executive Committee has ahealthy mix of representatives from aca-demia, industry and government. At amore operational level, the Division isexperimenting with outreach to the localchapter level, to help identify technicalactivities that CIE can foster and participatein at local levels. If representatives orleadership of any local chapters have aninterest in pursuing such activities, pleasedrop an email to Plamen Bliznakov (contactinformation on page 8 in this newsletter),who will be the new Division Chair bythe time you’ve received this issue.

As I mentioned earlier, this yearmarks the 25th anniversary of the CIE

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ContentsCommittee News: From EUC to CINEMAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2The Young Engineer’s Forum . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Organizing a New Technical Committeein Systems Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225 Years of Computers and Informationin Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Committee News: From CTFE to CTESA . . 4Great Moments in Computing . . . . . . . . . . . 4The CIE Technical Seminar Series . . . . . . . . 5Real-Time Linux for Data Acquisition and Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5CIE’s Technical Committees . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Looking Back: IDETC/CIE’94 . . . . . . . . . . . 62005–06 CIE Executive Committee . . . . . . . 6

Long Beach, California – Venue for the 25 th CIE Conference

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Division. This anniversary is being com-memorated in several ways. The CIEDivision web site has a new section relat-ing to the 25th anniversary, whichincludes a compilation of 25 years of CIE-related publications. A special issue ofJCISE is being planned, which will pro-vide retrospective overviews of key techni-cal areas that have been influential in thescope of computers and information in themechanical engineering field. There willalso be a variety of 25th anniversary eventstaking place at this year’s CIE Conference(taking place in Long Beach, CA, onSeptember 24-28), including a reception,

keynote, and a series of special sessionsorganized around the anniversary theme.I’d like to thank David E. Lee, past Chairof the CIE Division, for spearheading the25th anniversary effort, as well as all of theother people (too many to name individu-ally) who have contributed time to theseactivities.

It has been a privilege to serve on theCIE Executive Committee for the past fiveyears. I am confident that my colleagues onthe Executive Committee will continue tobring about positive changes for the Divisionand Society membership, and I look forwardto seeing what the future will bring. •

—Simon Szykman

part of the function. EUC founder andchairman Harry Cheng was joined by FredProctor of the National Institute ofStandards and Technology as co-chair, andthe program committee was populated byseveral members from SUNY Buffalo(Chin Pei Tang, Rajan Bhatt) and UCDavis (Zhao-qing Wang, Bo Chen).

At the 2004 Salt Lake City conferencethe committee conducted a tutorial onreal-time Linux and the embeddableC/C++ interpreter Ch. Linux is becomingincreasingly popular since it is freely dis-tributed and ported to a wide variety ofprocessor architectures, and several real-timevariants are available. Papers in the 2001and 2002 conferences showed that real-timeLinux is deterministic down to tens ofmicroseconds, and the 2004 tutorialshowed this with a variety of tabletopdemonstrations driven by a laptop. TheCh interpreter makes a good companion toRT Linux for real-time applications, andDr. Harry Cheng and his colleaguesdemonstrated Ch in tandem with RT Linux.

CINEMAS continues to look for inter-esting applications of “computers in thesystem” that resonate with mechanicalengineers interested in mechatronics,measurement and control. Software isbecoming increasingly important and thecommittee’s hope is to provide value toASME members through conference papers,tutorials and other material designed tomake software and computing very muchpart of an ME’s professional career.

For more information on CINEMAS,contact the committee chairs (see Page 5). •

Fred Proctor

The Embedded and UbiquitousComputing (EUC) Technical Committee

began in 1998 and hosted its first technicaland panel sessions at DETC/CIE Atlanta.Dr. Harry Cheng of the University ofCalifornia Davis started the Committee,which focused on networked computersembedded in a wide variety of applica-tions. Commercial off-the-shelf integrationand web technologies featured prominent-ly in EUC; indeed, papers at the Atlantaconference described the application ofembedded PCs for highway maintenancesystems, and the use of Java for the designand diagnosis of real-time systems. Thepopularity of web-based systems using Javaand VRML (Virtual Reality ModelingLanguage) was evident, both in paperspresented at EUC sessions and throughother CIE technical committees.

Industry involvement in EUC isencouraged, and at the 2003 conference inChicago the Best Paper Award went toAndy Suri and Viswanath Ananth fromPathway Technologies Inc. for their paperon hardware-in-the-loop embedded controlof stamping processes. That presentationincluded a demonstration of Pathway’s sys-tem and a lengthy Q&A period followed.

In 2004 EUC was recast as Computersin Electromechanical Systems (CINEMAS)so that it could be more closely identifiedwith ASME members’ core interests. Thefocus continued to be embedded systems,described as “the computer in the system”.Unlike other CIE technical committees inwhich computers play a part in design oranalysis, CINEMAS considers those sys-tems in which the computer is an integral

Committee News: From EUC to CINEMAS

The Young Engineers Forum

The Young Engineers Forum (YEF) wasstarted in 1992 by the ASME to pro-

vide young engineers with firsthand adviceand information on issues relevant to theircareers. While the YEF is intended forengineers with less than 10 years experience,more experienced engineers may find thetopics presented of interest. Students arealso welcome to participate.

The primary purpose of the program isto increase young engineers’ awareness oftrends and opportunities in the profession,both locally and globally. It provides “prac-tical” advice and information to help youadvance in your career through accounts of“real life” experiences and success stories byprofessionals in industry. The program isdelivered as a one-day event at Society eventsconsisting of lectures and panel discussions.

Exploring the opportunities available inthe engineering industry can be difficultespecially when you are not aware of theindustry or know someone who canenlighten you about that industry. TheYEF brings guest speakers from manydiverse and multi-disciplined companiesand universities to educate students andyoung professionals of what is out there inindustry. This is extremely beneficial to thestudents and young engineers because itallows them to expand their horizon andsee the numerous opportunities available.

In addition, the YEF provides a greatnetworking opportunity. Attendees areable to meet and network with managersand employers. Bring your resumes andmake some business cards for this eventbecause you never know who you may runinto at the next YEF in your area!

For information on organizing a YoungEngineers Forum in your town, please con-tact Howard Berkof at berkofh@asme.org.

We are also looking for energetic young engineers who want to help organ-ize web-based seminars on Computers andInforma-tion topics of interest to yourmechanical engineers. So get in touch with us! •

Howard Berkof

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The Computers and Information inEngineering (CIE) Conference stands

out among the meetings that take placeunder the auspices of the IDETC/CIEConferences due to the unique vision thatthe CIE Division has set out for itself.Whereas many of the other IDETC con-ferences focus on a well defined technicaldiscipline (e.g., vibrations, mechanisms,and various aspects of design), the CIEdivision has defined its domain as existingat the interfaces between three comple-mentary, yet distinct, disciplines. The CIEconference is aimed at disseminatingresearch that takes place at the boundariesbetween mechanical engineering, softwareengineering, and computer engineering,and that enhances the integration of thesetechnical fields.

Technical areas of interest to the con-ference fall broadly into themes of productdevelopment, systems development, man-agement and use of information, and relat-ed emerging technologies. More specifical-ly, conference topics include EnterpriseInformation Management, Computer-Aided Product Development, Internet-aided Design, Manufacturing and

Don't Forget!

25th CIE Conference Sept. 24-28, 2005

Long Beach, California

The ASME International 25th Computers and Information in Engineering (CIE)Conference will be held on September 24-28, 2005, in Long Beach, California. This year's conference provides a forum for enhancing the practice of engineering

by understanding the application of emerging technologies that impact critical engi-neering issues of representation, product design and product development, exchange,management and integration of information throughout the entire engineering productand process life-cycle.

The 25th CIE Conference, will particularly reflect the technical maturity of com-puting in engineering and the emergence of the fundamental role of computers andinformation in engineering. This conference will also mark the 25th Anniversary ofthe CIE Division and perspectives on where the division has been and where it isheaded will be highlighted. In addition, 2005 is the 125th Anniversary of ASME andwill be celebrated throughout the conference.

The conference will feature 124 paper presentations organized in 33 sessions. Inaddition, there will be a tutorial on Product Lifecycle Management, and five panelsessions on topics ranging from CAD for bio/micro/nano systems, to SysML andEnterprise Applications Interoperability. Finally there will be two special sessions inthe context of the 25 th anniversary, and a joint session with The Japan Society ofMechanical Engineers. •

Organizing a NewTechnical Committee inSystems Engineering

We'd like to invite members of the CIEDivision who are working in or

interested in the field of system engineer-ing to help us start up a new technicalfundamentals of system engineering(requirements definition and flowdown,validation and verification, etc.), the infra-structural issues in developing and usingcomputing tools for system engineering, aswell as the application of system engineer-ing to specific domains within mechanicalsystems and broadly applied to engineeredsystems. If you're interested, please send e-mail to leed515@asme.org. •

David E. Lee

Journal ofComputing andInformation Sciencein Engineering Special issue celebrating the 25thAnniversary of the CIE Division

JCISE is a multi-disciplinary journal atthe junction of Mechanical

Engineering and Computer Science. Itwas created with the specific purpose ofproviding an avenue for papers in com-puting and information science relatedto mechanical product development. Itpublishes archival research results andadvanced technical applications in theareas of computer aided product devel-opment, simulation and visualization,and engineering informatics (includingAI/Knowledge based systems).

Coming up later this year will be aspecial issue celebrating the 25 thanniversary of the CIE Division. Thisspecial issue will feature review articleslooking back at the most importanttrends in Computing and InformationScience over the last decade, and promi-nently features the impact the CIE divi-sion has had in this important domain.

Note: ASME members can get theirpersonal subscription to JCISE at ahighly reduced rate (U.S. $50/year).Remember to check the box whenrenewing your membership this year! •

Commerce, Virtual Environments andSystems, Computers in ElectromechanicalSystems, Non-Traditional Computing,Energy Systems, ComputationalTechnologies for Engineering SciencesApplications, and Computers in Education.

As this year is the CIE Division’s 25 thanniversary, an additional theme for the2005 conference is a 25th anniversary cel-ebration. Special events related to thisoccasion include a 25 th AnniversaryShowcase and Reception with a specialpapers highlighting important conferencethemes that have arisen over the years, andthe formal unveiling of the OnlineConferences Project, which aims to pro-vide comprehensive information on 25years of conferences (including lists ofpublications, conference leadership,awards, etc.). These conference activitieswill complement other 25 th anniversaryactivities, which include a 25th anniversaryedition of the CIE Division Newsletter,and a commemorative special issue of theASME Journal of Computing andInformation Science in Engineering. •

David E. Lee

25th Computers and Information inEngineering Conference

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You may have noticed that there was aname change for the Finite Elements

Computational Technologies Committee(CTFE) to that of ComputationalTechnologies for Engineering SciencesApplications (CTESA). This articledescribes some of the reasoning and theprocess behind the change.

The CTFE committee as it existed andoperated addressed only a few of the CIEgoals (www.divisions.asme.org/cie). It cer-tainly covered some activities into the useof computers and information manage-ment, but predominately it was exposingactivities on a very narrow area of the“computing methods” segment as it corre-sponded to Finite Element Analysis.Discussions with the outgoing co-chair ofthe committee Dr. C.S. To, confirmedthat this was a consequence of the evolu-tionary heritage of this committee.

During the 2003 CIE conference inChicago, David Lee and Simon Szykmanrequested that the incoming chair of thecommittee draft a proposal for a newfuture for the committee. The main ideasthat developed into such a proposal are:

• Change the name of the Committeeto one more encompassing of the spe-cific aspects of the CIE division's mis-sion areas, and less restricting from athematic perspective. (After all finiteelement technology is one of manymethods available to deal with theproblem of solving PDEs). The newname that was selected is:Computational Technologies forEngineering Sciences Applications(CTESA).

• Establish a clear list of objectives to expandthe scope of algorithmic development ofcomputational technologies beyond finiteelement methods. The new objectives are:Promote research, development, cross-fertilization, cooperation, sharing, and distribution of emerging and establishedtechnologies and their utilization for variousapplication contexts in the following eight areas:

1. Algorithmic development of modelingof continua including analog and dis-crete methods in space and time forODE and PDE models includingFinite Element/ Volume, Boundary

Great Moments inComputing 1972: HP 35 calculator; Atari and Pong 1974: Intel 8080 (64 KB memory);Zilog Z-80; Xerox PARC Alta (firstcomputer with mouse, windows, menusand icons) 1975: Altair 8800 (first “personal computer”,featured Bill Gates' BASIC interpreter) 1976: Cray-1; Apple I ($500) 1977: Apple II; TRS-80 1978: 5-1/4"floppy debuts 1979: VisiCalc (first “killer app”, forApple II); Motorola 68000; first“worm” program written at XeroxPARC 1980: Hard disk drive debuts (Seagate5 MB) 1981: IBM-PC; Osborne I (first “portablecomputer”); Apollo workstation 1982: Cray-XMP 1983: Compaq IBM-PC clone;Microsoft Word 1984: Apple Macintosh; IBM PC-AT(80286); 3-1/2" floppy debuts 1985: CD-ROM debuts; MS Windowsships; C++ introduced 1986: Compaq DeskPro (first PC with80386); Thinking Machines’ ConnectionMachine; RISC architecture appears 1987: IBM chases Compaq with PS/2and 80386; IBM OS/2 arrives to takeon Windows 1988: Steve Jobs’ NeXT introduced;Robert Morris' Internet Worm spreads 1990: Tim Berners-Lee invents WorldWide Web (HTML, HTTP and URL);Windows 3.0 1991: Linus Torvalds releases Linux 1992: DEC Alpha 64-bit RISC; Windows NT 1993: Apple Newton (first personal dig-ital assistant); Pentium; Mosaic webbrowser 1994: Netscape web browser 1995: Windows 95; Sun introduces Java1997: IBM's Deep Blue beats GaryKasparov at chess 1998: Windows 98;USB debuts; courts ban domain-name“cybersquatting” 1999: Apple PowerMac G4 (first per-sonal computer running at 1 teraflop) 2000: Windows 2000; RSA public-keycryptography patent expires 2001: Windows XP; Mac OS/X;Microsoft XBox; Apple iPod 2003: Apple PowerMac G5 •

Element, Finite Differences etc. model-ing and analysis techniques.

2. Qualification, Validation and Verificationof Computational Technologies associ-ated with the behavior of continuamodeling and simulation areas.

3. Automated Technologies for Code/Application/Environment/FrameworkGeneration.

4. Symbolic Algebra-based model andsoftware generation.

5. Intra- and inter-application dataexchange technologies for behavioralmodeling and simulation

6. Technologies supporting synthetic andcompositional behavior simulation ofsystems

7. Heterogeneous and DistributedApplication Integration methods andIT systems and resources for M&S ofbehavior of continua.

8. Modeling and Simulation drivenProblem Solving Environments.

(Note: The order of the items in the listdoes not reflect by any means the prioritiesof the committee.) • Establish clear guidelines/bylaws of thecommittee operation

• Examine the possibility of a distinct orincluded web presence under ASME'sdomain.

• Create a list of attainable goals and acorresponding plan focusing on creating aweb resource/repository (links, software,papers etc.) that gives exposure to thecommittee and the division in the realm of“hands-on utility” for engineers and tech-nologists. This should also serve as the his-torical archiving place for all conferencerelated activities.

In general as a Technical Committee ofthe CIE division this committee should bea champion on using “C” and “I” tech-nologies to promote and achieve its objec-tives as much as possible for both internal(organizational, discussion, paper reviewsetc) and external (activity/event marketing,collaborative efforts etc.) matters.

If you are interested in becoming anactive participant in the new CTESA com-mittee, contact the committee chair. •

John Michopoulos(john.michopoulos@nrl.navy.mil)

Committee News: From CTFE To CTESA

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The CIE TechnicalSeminar Series

The CIE Division has been working withthe Council on Member Affairs and the

Southeastern Michigan Section to developa technical event called the CIE TechnicalSeminar Series. The series targets:

• Practicing Engineers: Provide opportuni-ties for engineers in industry to learn howcurrent developments in computing andIT may impact their jobs

• Early Career Engineers (New Professionals):Enable engineers who typically do nothave travel budgets to attend meetings butare interested in new developments incomputing and IT

Topics considered include: SystemsEngineering, PLM (product life cyclemanagement), grid computing, simulationbased design, and virtual environments.

If you and your local section wouldlike to host a series, please contact FredProctor (frederick.proctor@nist.gov). •

Fred Proctor

rial was given at the 2004 ASMEDETC/CIE conference in Salt Lake City.This tutorial features examples of usingRT Linux to respond to interrupts on theparallel port (low-cost data acquisition),drive radio-control servomotors, and beammessages using an LED wand clock. RTLinux has also been applied successfully tocommercial applications. A machine toolcontroller originally developed by theauthor to support U.S. Government man-ufacturing standards work was adopted bySherline Inc. of Vista, CA for their steppermotor-based computer numerical control(CNC) milling machines.

Engineers and researchers who want toleverage their existing PCs for data acqui-sition and control applications should con-sider RT Linux. Linux’ free C and C++compilers, graphic user interface toolkitsand office productivity software coupledwith the microsecond-level determinism ofthe real-time extensions makes it a viableplatform for a wide variety of demandingapplications. For information, links andpapers on real-time Linux See:www.isd.mel.nist.gov/projects/rtlinux/. •

Fred Proctor

and average throughput is the only mean-ingful measure. For real-time tasks, partic-ularly control, these delays can result ininstabilities and system failure. For theseapplications, an RTOS is necessary. Noneof the most common operating systems(Microsoft Windows, Apple OS/X orLinux) are real-time, since this niche fea-ture is seldom needed in home computing.However, there are many third-partyextensions available commercially or asopen source that bring real-time determin-ism to PCs. One popular choice is real-time Linux, available free as open sourcefrom several providers (see link at theend). RT Linux reduces the timing varia-tion (“jitter”) from about 10 milli-secondsfor regular Linux to about 10 microsec-onds, or a factor of 1000. With some soft-ware tricks, jitter can be reduced to about100 nanoseconds. This places the capabili-ties of RT Linux squarely in the domain ofdemanding real-time applications such asmotion control.

Numerous interesting examples of RTLinux can be found on the web. A tutorialon RT Linux can be found at the linkbelow, in the “Tutorial” section. This tuto-

Real-Time Linux for Data Acquisition and Control

Today’s personal computers are so fastthat they can effectively replace dedicat-

ed instrumentation for many data acquisi-tion and control applications. The advan-tage of using PCs is their low cost andavailability of a wide range of software. Tofully exploit the power of the computer, areal-time operating system (RTOS) isneeded. Without one, time-critical tasksmust be handled by “smart” hardware suchas data acquisition- or motion controlboards, relegating the PC to user interfacetasks. With an RTOS, much of the intelli-gence residing on these boards can bemoved to the PC, with much cheaper“dumb” input/output boards that simplyhandle the electronics interfaces to externalsensors and actuators. An example of themove from hardware to software is theWinModem, a modem in which much ofthe software previously residing in themodem chipset is moved into the softwaredevice driver. Fast computers can easilyhandle the timing required, eliminatingthe chipset and reducing cost.

No RTOS is required for the Win-Modem since data buffering can accom-modate nondeterministic timing delays,

CIE's Technical Committee ChairsComputational Technologies for Engineering John MichopoulosSciences Applications (CTESA) U.S. Naval Research LaboratoryComputer-Aided Product Development Xiaoping Qian(CAPD) Illinois Institute of TechnologyComputers in Education (CIEd) Mohammad Khosrowjerdi

Western New England CollegeComputers in Electromechanical Frederick ProctorSystems (CINEMAS) National Institute of Standards and Technology

Harry H. ChengUniversity of California, Davis

Energy Systems (ES) Ryo S AmanoUniversity of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Ashwani K. GuptaUniversity of Maryland

Enterprise Information Management Russell Peak(EIM) Georgia Institute of TechnologyInternet-Aided Design, Manufacturing Karthik Ramaniand Commerce (IADMC) Purdue University

Greg RoachHoneywell International

Non-Traditional Computing (NTC) Anthony de Sam LazaroSt. Martin’s College

Virtual Environments and Systems (VES) Peter EbbesmeyerUniversity of Paderborn

www.divisions.asme.org/cie

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Looking back…To the first integratedDETC/CIE—1994 in Minneapolis

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Looking back…1994 DETC/CIE in Minneapolis

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Three Park Avenue, New York, NY 10016-5990

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NON-PROFITU.S. POSTAGE

PAIDSYRACUSE, N.Y.

PERMIT NO. 3 8 9 3

2005 ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition

November 13-18, 2005Orlando, Florida • Walt Disney World Dolphin

www.asmeconferences.org/congress05

Join the CIE Division and thousands of your colleagues in Orlando, Florida for a week of exchanging ideas, networking, and conducting business. At hundreds of technical sessions, special forums, product exhibits, industrial tours and social events, you'll

receive updates on current trends, learn new techniques, trade tips and explore the technical worlds of your fellow mechanical engineerswhile venturing out and around the magic kingdoms that comprise Disney World and Central Florida. •

2005-06 CIE Executive CommitteeChair: Plamen Bliznakov, Parametric Technology Corp. plamen@ptc.com

Vice-Chair: Imre Horváth, Technical University of Delft i.horvath@io.tudelft.nl

CIE Conference Executive: Chris Paredis, Georgia Institute of Technology chris.paredis@me.gatech.edu

Secretary: Ravi Rangan, Product Sight, Corp. ravi.rangan@productsight.com

Member: Fred Procter, National Institute of Standards and Technology frederick.proctor@nist.gov

Past Chair: Simon Szykman, US Department of Homeland Security szykmans@asme.org