Agent and cyber-physical system based self-organizing and self-adaptive intelligent shopfloor

The increasing demand of customized production results in huge challenges to the traditional manufacturing systems. In order to allocate resources timely according to the production requirements and to reduce disturbances, a framework for the future intelligent shopfloor is proposed in this paper. The framework consists of three primary models, namely the model of smart machine agent, the self-organizing model, and the self-adaptive model. A cyber-physical system for manufacturing shopfloor based on the multiagent technology is developed to realize the above-mentioned function models. Gray relational analysis and the hierarchy conflict resolution methods were applied to achieve the self-organizing and self-adaptive capabilities, thereby improving the reconfigurability and responsiveness of the shopfloor. A prototype system is developed, which has the adequate flexibility and robustness to configure resources and to deal with disturbances effectively. This research provides a feasible method for designing an autonomous factory with exception-handling capabilities

Active learning based laboratory towards engineering education 4.0

Universities have a relevant and essential key role to ensure knowledge and development of competencies in the current fourth industrial revolution called Industry 4.0. The Industry 4.0 promotes a set of digital technologies to allow the convergence between the information technology and the operation technology towards smarter factories. Under such new framework, multiple initiatives are being carried out worldwide as response of such evolution, particularly, from the engineering education point of view. In this regard, this paper introduces the initiative that is being carried out at the Technical University of Catalonia, Spain, called Industry 4.0 Technologies Laboratory, I4Tech Lab. The I4Tech laboratory represents a technological environment for the academic, research and industrial promotion of related technologies. First, in this work, some of the main aspects considered in the definition of the so called engineering education 4.0 are discussed. Next, the proposed laboratory architecture, objectives as well as considered technologies are explained. Finally, the basis of the proposed academic method supported by an active learning approach is presented.Postprint (published version

An improved cell controller for the aerospace manufacturing

The aerospace manufacturing industry is unique in that production typically focuses on high variety and quality but low volume. Existing flexible manufacturing cells are limited to certain types of machines, robots and cells which makes it difficult to introduce any changes. In this paper idea of treating machines, robots, any hardware and software as resource has been introduced. It describes the development of the Flexa Cell Coordinator (FCC), a system that is providing a solution to manage cells and their resources in a new flexible manner. It can control, organise and coordinate between cells and resources and is capable of controlling remote cells because of its distributed nature. It also provides connectivity with company systems e.g., Enterprise Resource Planner (ERP). It is extendable and capable of adding multiple cells inside the system. In FCC resources (e.g., tracker) can also be shared between cells. The paper presents its development and results of initial successful testing

TINA as a virtual market place for telecommunication and information services: the VITAL experiment

The VITAL (Validation of Integrated Telecommunication Architectures for the Long-Term) project has defined, implemented and demonstrated an open distributed telecommunication architecture (ODTA) for deploying, managing and using a set of heterogeneous multimedia, multi-party, and mobility services. The architecture was based on the latest specifications released by TINA-C. The architecture was challenged in a set of trials by means of a heterogeneous set of applications. Some of the applications were developed within the project from scratch, while some others focused on integrating commercially available applications. The applications were selected in such a way as to assure full coverage of the architecture implementation and reflect a realistic use of it. The VITAL experience of refining and implementing TINA specifications and challenging the resulting platform by a heterogeneous set of services has proven the openness, flexibility and reusability of TINA. This paper describes the VITAL approach when choosing the different services and how they challenge and interact with the architecture, focusing especially on the service architecture and the Ret reference point definitions. The VITAL adjustments and enhancements to the TINA architecture are described. This paper contributes to proving that the TINA-based VITAL ODTA allows for easy and cost-effective development and deployment of advanced end-user and operator services, and can indeed act as the basis for a virtual market place for telecommunications service

Discrete event simulation and virtual reality use in industry: new opportunities and future trends

This paper reviews the area of combined discrete event simulation (DES) and virtual reality (VR) use within industry. While establishing a state of the art for progress in this area, this paper makes the case for VR DES as the vehicle of choice for complex data analysis through interactive simulation models, highlighting both its advantages and current limitations. This paper reviews active research topics such as VR and DES real-time integration, communication protocols, system design considerations, model validation, and applications of VR and DES. While summarizing future research directions for this technology combination, the case is made for smart factory adoption of VR DES as a new platform for scenario testing and decision making. It is put that in order for VR DES to fully meet the visualization requirements of both Industry 4.0 and Industrial Internet visions of digital manufacturing, further research is required in the areas of lower latency image processing, DES delivery as a service, gesture recognition for VR DES interaction, and linkage of DES to real-time data streams and Big Data sets