DARPA Awards Intentional Software Contract to Accelerate Vehicle Manufacturing

Advanced knowledge automation approach selected for Adaptive Vehicle Make

Arlington, VA, and Bellevue, WA—November 14, 2011—Intentional has been awarded a competitively-bid contract from Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to provide key technologies for accelerating vehicle development and manufacturing processes in the Adaptive Vehicle Make (AVM) program. The goal of AVM is to shorten by a factor of five the time required to develop and manufacture complex vehicles. Under this agreement, Intentional is developing a language-based knowledge workbench and design automation platform that unifies advanced systems engineering knowledge with flexible manufacturing knowledge to automate manufacturability feedback.

The AVM program addresses revolutionary approaches to the design, verification and manufacturing of complex defense systems and vehicles. Intentional’s role in the project enables integration and automation over a mix of design and manufacturing languages and models that represent systems engineering and manufacturing knowledge. Intentional’s deliverables will be used to enable early manufacturability feedback directly into the design trade space. The AVM program seeks to enable the creation of a flexible, programmable, potentially distributed production capability able to accommodate a wide range of systems and system variants with extremely rapid reconfiguration timescales.

“Intentional Software is developing tools to identify assembly steps based on seams in a product structure as well as integrated liaison graphs for use by other tools in assembly assignment activities. Intentional is also developing a VHDL-like manufacturing process language to represent the various product and process representations in play for products, operations, foundry, and execution. The Intentional AVM workbench work in iFAB is able to connect attributes throughout the design and fabrication representations to ensure consistency throughout. It can also identify disconnects (constraint violations) between the design as assembly processes, such as a component being too heavy for the chosen assembly approach and support changes to ensure development of a satisfactory assembly plan”, said Paul Eremenko, DARPA AVM Program Manager.

“DARPA has a compelling track record; from developing the Internet to GPS. We think that the AVM program has a similar potential to change the future of how vehicles and other complex systems are developed and manufactured. We are honored to be selected to provide key technology to realize this vision.” said Charles Simonyi, CTO and chairman of Intentional.

Eric Anderson, President & CEO of Intentional added, “This project is a great example of the kinds of hard problems that Intentional’s capabilities and technology can simplify. We look forward to demonstrating our solutions.”

About Defense Advanced Research Project Agency
DARPA’s mission is to maintain the technological superiority of the U.S. military and prevent technological surprise from harming our national security by sponsoring revolutionary, high-payoff research bridging the gap between fundamental discoveries and their military use. Over the years, DARPA has worked to enhance our national security by funding research and technology development that not only have improved our military capabilities but have changed the way we live. Since the very beginning, DARPA has been the place for people with innovative ideas that lead to groundbreaking discoveries. More information about the Adaptive Vehicle Make program can be found at DARPA AVM

About Intentional Software Corporation
Intentional Software Corporation’s mission is to make the world’s knowledge more accessible and useful. Intentional Software builds knowledge intensive applications, changing how we capture, automate, and utilize knowledge. Intentional provides organizations with measurable improvements in the way knowledge assets are used. For more information please see www.intentsoft.com .

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