Operator interfaces for the lifecycle support of component based automation systems

Current manufacturing automation systems (specifically the powertrain sector) have been facing challenges with constant pressures of globalisation, environmental concerns and ICT (Information and Communication Technology) innovations. These challenges instigate new demands for shorter product lifecycles and require customised products to be manufactured as efficiently as possible. Manufacturing systems must therefore be agile to remain competitive by supporting frequent reconfigurations involving distributed engineering activities. [Continues.

A Novel Framework for Building Distributed Data Acquisition and Monitoring Systems

Abstract — We propose a novel framework for building a distributed data acquisition and monitoring system. Our novel framework is mainly based on XML leverages and OPC (Openness, Productivity, and Connectivity) techniques. Correspondingly, our framework-based system allows easily aggregating more than the hundreds or thousands of the existing OPC DA (Data Access) products in use today with new OPC XML-DA products in a flexible system that can support to exchange the complex data between the OPC products in both the vertical and horizon effectively. In addition, the high performance and abilities of reading and decoding any type of data from hardware I/O devices on the plant floor, which are truly important factors in application design, are also adequately proposed in this framework. To provide a framework for design and implementation of the control and monitoring systems, our framework is proposed as the throughout of standards for interfaces, architectures, and functionalities. This framework is significantly easy to reuse, maintain, and deploy to real industrial applications. In addition to guarantee security problems, we discuss the levels of security aspects in the control and monitoring systems considerately. These security aspects provide more security information for technical-level readers. Moreover, the evaluations of our framework and system performance analysis indicate that our framework-based system has a good design, an acceptable performance, and is feasible to apply to the area of control and monitoring systems today. Index Terms — Framework, XML leverage, distributed data, OPC, monitoring system, security, acceptable performanc