Trustworthy AI for Digital Engineering Transformation

Jingwei Huang, Peter Beling, Laura Freeman, Yong Zeng
2022 Journal of Integrated Design & Process Science  
We are in the dawn of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Schwab, 2017) . This new wave of industrial revolution is marked by the pervasive digital transformation, driven by the convergence and fast growth of a set of disruptive digital technologies, including Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), Big Data, the Internet of Things (IoT), Cloud Computing, Blockchain, Digital Twin, 3D printing, and others. The digital transformation has profound impacts on almost every aspect of
more » ... an society and has been changing how we live, how we work, how we communicate, what products and services to be produced and delivered, and how business is to be conducted. In engineering, the transformation is shifting the landscape of engineering processes, from concept definition, design, manufacturing, operations, and sustainment through retirement and recycling. Digital Engineering, the digital transformation of engineering, is emerging globally with different names and focuses. The US Department of Defense (DoD) launched their Digital Engineering Strategy (US DoD, 2018; Zimmerman, Gilbert, & Salvatore, 2019) in 2018. The strategy has five goals: (1) formalize the development, integration and use of models, leading to a continuous end-to-end digital representation of the system of interest; (2) provide enduring, authoritative source of truth, to share and exchange digital models, data, and other digital artifacts across boundaries of organizations and the engineering lifecycle; (3) incorporate technological innovation to improve the engineering practice; (4) establish a supporting infrastructure and environments; (5) transform culture and workforce to adopt and support digital engineering. From the perspective of engineering practice, "DoD defines digital engineering as an integrated digital approach that uses the authoritative source of system data and models as a continuum across disciplines to support lifecycle activities from concept through disposal." No doubt, the implementation of DoD Digital Engineering Strategy will significantly change how engineering practice is conducted in DoD enterprise, the US defence industry, and beyond. AI (including many branches, such as Machine Learning, Knowledge Representation & Reasoning, and Semantic Technology) is a fundamental enabling technology for Digital Engineering (
doi:10.3233/jid-210028 fatcat:jaijxyo52bba5eavb2ujfgg2b4