Highlight: Dr. Taylor is currently collaborating with Prosensys Inc. to build a research facility for advanced semiconductor manufacturing and materials processing and to implement and patent novel instrumentation and control systems for process control.

The basic thrust in intelligent/self-optimizing control (ISOC) is the development of approaches that combine control technology with optimization methods and applied artificial intelligence techniques to create systems that can (to the extent realistically possible) optimize their own performance and, in the process, learn how to refine their models and knowledge bases to continually improve their effectiveness (refer to the ISOC overview.

A major infrastructure development project for intelligent/self-optimizing control (ISOC) was completed in March 1999 in the area of semiconductor manufacturing. An application has to be well instrumented and under complete low-level control before ISOC functionalities can be implemented; this was accomplished in the Semiconductor Manufacturing Research Facility (SMRF) which was completed in the UNB IncuTech complex in collaboration with Prosensys Inc. A three-professor team led by Taylor worked with graduate students to (i) design the optical path for in situ FTIR sensing of chemical constituents in the reaction vessel (Dr. Bao, Physics), (ii) predict the concentration distributions within the vessel (Dr. Couturier, Chemical Engineering) and (iii) design and implement the instrumentation and control system (Taylor). With this system in place and fully operational, the Senior Chair has worked with Prosensys Inc. to prepare a project plan and proposal for ISOC, which will be submitted to NSERC in conjunction with the next phase of IRC funding.

Patent Pending: Whidden, Taylor, Bao, Xiaozhong, Lu, Hornibrook, Couturier and Romet, ``Apparatus and Method for Infrared Radiation Transmission and System and Method for Infrared Analysis'', filed 8 October 1999.