The Scientific Technical Committee Precision Engineering and Metrology (STC P) had two online meetings in 2021 – on February 19 and August 27, 2021.  Due to the logistical difficulties, both of those meetings were only two hours in length, therefore, the number of agenda items and relevant discussions were kept at a minimum. In the February meeting there were 65 members and one invited guest.  In the August meeting, there were 53 members and 11 invited guests in attendance.

During the February 2021 meeting future keynote proposals were discussed keeping the general trends in manufacturing influencing future STC P activities in consideration.  Those trends were discussed during February 2020 meeting and summarized as follows:

• Increase in the range of size scales (very small and very large) and complexity of products, along with reduced tolerances, challenging the capabilities of existing measurement systems
• New generation of sensors (e.g., high-resolution low-cost imaging systems) and measuring instruments introducing new challenges in traceability
• Process and enterprise integrated metrology, facilitating more efficient process control and product validation (use of digital twins, cyber-physical systems, Industry 4.0)
• Model-based and AI-enabled manufacturing and metrology, new challenges associated with measurement uncertainties and traceability

Based on these general trends, STC P decided to prepare the following keynote papers for the next several years:

2023 – Gear metrology – an update

2024 – Integrated metrology for advanced manufacturing systems

2025 – Dimensional metrology based on ultrashort pulse laser and optical frequency comb

2026 – Machine learning in production metrology

During this meeting STC P also discussed the experiences of online meetings and generated several recommendations for the upcoming online GA, which were conveyed to the Liaison Committee in February.

STC P assigned Dr. Benjamin Haefner as the STC P Ambassador to the newly established CWG AI.  Dr. Haefner presented the summary of CWG AI meeting.  Dr. Donmez presented the update on the CWG AM activities and the status of the proposed keynote paper (which was cancelled in the following months, turning into a review paper to be submitted to CIRP JMST).

Due to short duration of the meeting, there was only one technical presentation, by Dr. Zanini of University of Padova, Italy, entitled “Metrological X-ray computed tomography for geometrical characterization and prediction of mechanical behaviour of fiber reinforced polymeric materials. »

During the August 2021 meeting, STC P discussed the status of (above mentioned) future keynote papers providing inputs to the corresponding keynote authors. In addition to the 2022 STC P keynote paper on XCT metrology, STC P members were invited to review the draft of 2022 STC M keynote paper on mechanical interfaces in machine tools, since significant section of the paper describes geometric accuracy and precision of such interfaces (contributed by STC P chair).

The following short technical presentations were given during the meeting:

• “Calibration of fringe projection coordinate measuring systems,” by R. Leach, University of Nottingham, UK
• “Metrological Interpretation of Features Extracted by Generative AI Models for Machine Vision,” by R. Schmitt, WZL/RWTH Aachen University, Germany
• “Deep-learning based digital image correlation (DIC) for strain measurement,” by P. Guo, Northwestern University, USA

During the meeting, there was a proposal by Dr. A. Balsamo to establish liaison between CIRP and ISO/TC213 “Dimensional and geometrical product specifications and verification.” This proposal was discussed and unanimously approved by STC P members in attendance.  STC P chair was tasked to bring this issue to the attention of Liaison Committee for further action.  Upon discussion in the Liaison Committee meeting and the final approval by the Council, STC P chair is currently coordinating with Dr. Balsamo to initiate the formal application procedure for establishing the liaison with ISO/TC213.

STC P live session was held on Monday, August 23, 2021. In addition to the STC P Keynote presentations, there were 8 short presentations by the authors of the papers published in 2021 Annals.  The topics of these papers covered the areas of machine tool/robot modeling and metrology, new position sensors and drive systems, gear metrology, and statistics-based decision rules using coordinate measuring systems. They were all well presented by the authors and generated lively discussions during the live session.

Alkan Donmez

October 28, 2021