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" The Pentagon&amp;#039;s mad scientists at DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) want to revolutionize auto manufacturing by using an enormous library of digitally rendered mechanical parts to bring a new vehicle from conception to manufacture in as little as one-fifth the typical time. The effort is called the Adaptive Vehicle Make program, or AVM. And now DARPA is giving auto engineers and wannabes alike the chance to compete for $4 million in prizes to prove out the concept. DARPA has just launched the public face of AVM at vehicleforge.org, where registration is now open to U.S. citizens for the first of three planned competitions, set to get under way in January. Once registered, participants will have access to META, DARPA&amp;#039;s system for storing, manipulating, and assembling virtual vehicle components. DARPA program manager Nathan Wiedenman said in a press briefing on Tuesday that the META system is now in beta testing. The immediate payoff of all this for the military\u2014specifically for the Marine Corps, with which DARPA is working closely\u2014will be a new amphibious infantry vehicle. DARPA is calling the new vehicle FANG, for Fast, Adaptive, Next-Generation Ground Vehicle. But longer term, the Pentagon stands to gain a manufacturing base that can react quickly and efficiently to new military requirements. Down the line, civilians could eventually see a whole new class of production vehicles that are customized for ever-narrower market niches. Wiedenman said he doesn&amp;#039;t consider the FANG Challenge an example of true crowdsourcing, where just about anyone with a computer would be able to compete. Major engineering and design chops are necessary to design a military vehicle. Still, he sees a major benefit in the inclusion of many more participants.  &amp;quot;The only entities able to contribute to the design of these important systems are corporations with the wherewithal to build multimillion dollar prototypes. That limits us to a handful of companies and maybe a few hundred brains. In a nation of 300 million people, we can do better.&amp;quot;      Virtual Library META has several thousand automotive parts online in a component model library. By the time the first competition begins, components should number in the tens of thousands. Some of the parts can be manipulated\u2014lengthened, shortened, or reshaped\u2014to create new parts that can then be shared with the community of designers. The system includes collaboration tools to allow members of the same team to work together virtually on a shared design. The key to AVM is that participants will not only assemble the parts into new designs virtually; they&amp;#039;ll also be able to simulate the realistic interactions of vehicle components without having to build prototypes first, DARPA says. The idea, said Wiedenman in the briefing, is that &amp;quot;when the design is completed, we build it and the system works the way the design predicts the first time. That is, the first one we build is not a prototype, it&amp;#039;s a production model.&amp;quot; It&amp;#039;s a radical idea for the automotive industry, where the norm is to design, build, and test prototypes to find out what needs correcting, and then go back to the drawing board for tweaks in a process that can take years. This new approach borrows something from the computer industry, which stakes its life on shortening the time between product cycles. &amp;quot;The integrated circuit industry went through this same sort of transformation about 30 years ago,&amp;quot; Wiedenman said. &amp;quot;Integrated circuit designers were able to create these kinds of correct-by-construction designs to help them maintain the 24-to-36-month product cycle that has really helped to sustain the massive growth in that industry ever since.&amp;quot; FANG Challenge FANG Challenge 1 will run from January 14 through April 22. Registered competitors will vie to create the perfect drivetrain for the new amphibious vehicle. DARPA will score the entries according to their tested performance, including speed and range; the estimated time they will take to manufacture; and how much they will cost. Wiedeman anticipates that competitors will form teams to get the job done, though he pointed out in the briefing that the winning team will have to split the $1 million prize, giving them an incentive to keep their numbers down. FANG Challenge 2, set to begin at the end of 2013, will task teams to create a chassis for the vehicle, also for a $1 million prize. A FANG Challenge 3, sometime in 2014, will ask competitors to build a full vehicle for a $2 million prize. The winning designs for each competition will be manufactured in the AVM program&amp;#039;s iFAB, which stands for Instant Adaptive Foundry through Bits. &amp;quot;Once we build it, we will hand it back to FANG, and they will go through physical testing of the built article to ensure that it performs the requirements as expected,&amp;quot; says Mark Traband, head of the iFAB project at Penn State&amp;#039;s Applied Research Laboratory. That will give FANG engineers a chance to tweak the computer models as necessary to make sure that they actually do predict how designs will work in the real world. Now coming together at the Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois, iFAB is no less ambitious than the virtual components of the program. If all goes well, the rapidly reconfigurable factory will be able to spit out just about any vehicle design on demand. Michael Belfiore is the author of The Department of Mad Scientists: How DARPA Is Remaking Our World, from the Internet to Artificial Limbs and is a frequent PM contributor. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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