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Prof Trevor Robinson

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Queen’s University Belfast

Trevor graduated from Queen’s University Belfast with a MEng in Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering. He then pursued a PhD in the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering while working on a large European Framework Programme aerospace project called VIVACE. He is currently Deputy Head of School.

Trevor’s research contributes to automated Computer-Aided Design systems. He investigates novel geometry-based methods for design, with a particular focus on integrating Computer-Aided Design and Simulation systems. Recent work has included researching the concept of Simulation Intent, investigating new generative design and parameterisation strategies, automated approaches to mesh generation and the use of machine learning to provide understanding and to enable better processes. He has been involved in the biohaviour projects from the first one, In Search of Design Genes: Chaotic versus Controlled Mitosis, in 2015.

RIED Specific Links & Papers

  • Facilitating a Revolution of Engineering Simulation: Perspectives on Integrated Simulation Frameworks (September 2021)

    Prof Trevor Robinson et al

    Presented at ASSESS Insight Webinar Series – September 2021

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  • CAD-Centric Generative Design Systems (May 2022)

    Prof Trevor Robinson

    The ASSESS Initiative is a broad reaching multi-industry initiative with a primary goal to facilitate a revolution of enablement that will vastly increase the availability and utility of Engineering Simulation, leading to significantly increased business benefits across the full spectrum of industries, applications and users. Since June 2022, ASSESS as been part of NAFEMS.

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  • Generative design for additive manufacturing using a biological development analogy (January 2022)

    Prof Mark Price, Dr Imelda Friel, Prof Trevor Robinson, Dr Declan Nolan, Dr Peter Kilpatrick et al

    Published in the Journal of Computational Design and Engineering

    This work presents a novel bottom-up methodology to generate designs that can be tightly integrated with the additive manufacturing environment and that can respond flexibly to changes in that environment….The method is bio-inspired, based on strategies observed in natural systems, particularly in biological growth and development. The design geometry is grown in a computer-aided design-based, bio-inspired generative design system called ‘Biohaviour’.

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  • Towards producing innovative engineering design concepts using AI – paper (July 2024)

    Dr Imelda Friel, Dr Andrew Colligan, Dr Simon Hickinbotham, Dr Rahul Dubey, Prof Trevor Robinson, Prof Mark Price, Prof Andy Tyrrell FREng et al

    This paper was presented by Imelda Friel at the MadeAI Conference in Porto, Portugal in July 2024.

    This paper examines the application of a novel Evolutionary-Development (Evo-Devo)
    system that integrates AI tools within the conceptual design process to produce populations of
    innovative design options. The aim is to allow the behaviours of designs to be learned and then
    exploited later in the design process. Here a design concept (referred to as an organism) is
    constructed from cells, which have an evolving NN architecture controlling each
    cells’parameterisation. The following work demonstrates the application of the Evo-Devo
    process on a volume-to-point heat transfer problem, returning design concepts with a network
    of heat channels that direct heat built up in the plate to a point at ambient temperature

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  • A Novel Design System for Exploiting Additive Manufacturing (September 2021)

    Dr Imelda Friel, Prof Mark Price, Prof Trevor Robinson, Dr Declan Nolan, Dr Peter Kilpatrick et al

    This paper describes the aspects of the system analogous to nature alongside the data structures used to represent the developing organism and its ability to interact and respond to the environment. It demonstrates how manufacturing specific information can be coded in the system and in the genome of the cells and expressed in the organism through the development process in this new design system.

    This paper was included in the proceedings from the on-line 37th International Manufacturing Conference, co-hosted by the Athlone Institute of Technology and CONFIRM, held in September 2021

    IMC Conference Archive (manufacturingcouncil.ie)

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