Experience with IMDAS in the Automated Manufacturing Research Facility

The Automated Manufacturing Research Facility (AMRF) is a unique engineering laboratory at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST†) Center for Manufacturing Engineering. The facility provides a basic array of discrete metal parts manufacturing equipment and control systems – a testbed – that researchers from NIST, industrial firms, universities and other government agencies can use to experiment with new standards and to study new methods of measurement and quality control for automated factories. Construction of the facility began in late 1981 and the facility has been operating as a fully functional laboratory since late 1986, although improvements and equipment changes are continually ongoing. The project is funded by NIST and the Navy Manufacturing Technology Program and is significantly supported by industry through donations or loans of major components and through cooperative research programs. The goal of the project is to identify and exercise potential standard interfaces between existing and future components of small-batch manufacturing systems and to provide a laboratory for the development of factory-floor metrology in an automated environment, delivering proven measurement techniques to American industry. In addition, the AMRF is being used as a testbed for research on the next generation of "knowledge-based" manufacturing systems.