Mingchen Liu

Yu-Zhe Shi, Mingchen Liu, Fanxu Meng et al.

Self-driving laboratories have begun to replace human experimenters in performing single experimental skills or predetermined experimental protocols. However, as the pace of idea iteration in scientific research has been intensified by Artificial Intelligence, the demand for rapid design of new protocols for new discoveries become evident. Efforts to automate protocol design have been initiated, but the capabilities of knowledge-based machine designers, such as Large Language Models, have not been fully elicited, probably for the absence of a systematic representation of experimental knowledge, as opposed to isolated, flatten pieces of information. To tackle this issue, we propose a multi-faceted, multi-scale representation, where instance actions, generalized operations, and product flow models are hierarchically encapsulated using Domain-Specific Languages. We further develop a data-driven algorithm based on non-parametric modeling that autonomously customizes these representations for specific domains. The proposed representation is equipped with various machine designers to manage protocol design tasks, including planning, modification, and adjustment. The results demonstrate that the proposed method could effectively complement Large Language Models in the protocol design process, serving as an auxiliary module in the realm of machine-assisted scientific exploration.

Yu-Zhe Shi, Mingchen Liu, Hanlu Ma et al.

Industrial designers have long sought a natural and intuitive way to achieve the targeted control of prototype models -- using simple natural language instructions to configure and adjust the models seamlessly according to their intentions, without relying on complex modeling commands. While Large Language Models have shown promise in this area, their potential for controlling prototype models through language remains partially underutilized. This limitation stems from gaps between designers' languages and modeling languages, including mismatch in abstraction levels, fluctuation in semantic precision, and divergence in lexical scopes. To bridge these gaps, we propose an interface architecture that serves as a medium between the two languages. Grounded in design principles derived from a systematic investigation of fast prototyping practices, we devise the interface's operational mechanism and develop an algorithm for its automated domain specification. Both machine-based evaluations and human studies on fast prototyping across various product design domains demonstrate the interface's potential to function as an auxiliary module for Large Language Models, enabling precise and effective targeted control of prototype models.

Yu-Zhe Shi, Qiao Xu, Yanjia Li et al.

Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) systems have become indispensable for modern manufacturing operations, enabling optimized resource allocation and production efficiency in increasingly complex and dynamic environments. While algorithms for solving abstracted scheduling problems have been extensively investigated, the critical prerequisite of specifying manufacturing requirements into formal constraints remains manual and labor-intensive. Although recent advances of generative models, particularly Large Language Models (LLMs), show promise in automating constraint specification from heterogeneous raw manufacturing data, their direct application faces challenges due to natural language ambiguity, non-deterministic outputs, and limited domain-specific knowledge. This paper presents a constraint-centric architecture that regulates LLMs to perform reliable automated constraint specification for production scheduling. The architecture defines a hierarchical structural space organized across three levels, implemented through domain-specific representation to ensure precision and reliability while maintaining flexibility. Furthermore, an automated production scenario adaptation algorithm is designed and deployed to efficiently customize the architecture for specific manufacturing configurations. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach successfully balances the generative capabilities of LLMs with the reliability requirements of manufacturing systems, significantly outperforming pure LLM-based approaches in constraint specification tasks.