Search-based system architecture development using a holistic modeling approach

This dissertation presents an innovative approach to system architecting where search algorithms are used to explore design trade space for good architecture alternatives. Such an approach is achieved by integrating certain model construction, alternative generation, simulation, and assessment processes into a coherent and automated framework. This framework is facilitated by a holistic modeling approach that combines the capabilities of Object Process Methodology (OPM), Colored Petri Net (CPN), and feature model. The resultant holistic model can not only capture the structural, behavioral, and dynamic aspects of a system, allowing simulation and strong analysis methods to be applied, it can also specify the architectural design space. Both object-oriented analysis and design (OOA/D) and domain engineering were exploited to capture design variables and their domains and define architecture generation operations. A fully realized framework (with genetic algorithms as the search algorithm) was developed. Both the proposed framework and its suggested implementation, including the proposed holistic modeling approach and architecture alternative generation operations, are generic. They are targeted at systems that can be specified using object-oriented or process-oriented paradigm. The broad applicability of the proposed approach is demonstrated on two examples. One is the configuration of reconfigurable manufacturing systems (RMSs) under multi-objective optimization and the other is the architecture design of a manned lunar landing system for the Apollo program. The test results show that the proposed approach can cover a huge number of architecture alternatives and support the assessment of several performance measures. A set of quality results was obtained after running the optimization algorithm following the proposed framework --Abstract, page iii

Towards automatic control for microfactories.

International audienceMicrofactories are new specific and flexible systems to produce and assemble micrometric products. These systems are different of standard production platforms because they are confronted with a lot of constraints without influence at human-scale systems. This approach will lead to the development of an architecture of the technical information system adapted to a modular, reconfigurable and evolutionary microfactory. In such a context of production of microproducts, the technical information system is the spinal cord of the microfactory. The definition of the data, their architecture and their organization will build up the base of the control structure. To efficiently and surely control the set of cells, the traditional control scheme must be integrated in a global information model. This paper presents the design of an information model dedicated to microfactories and its advantages

Special Session on Industry 4.0

No abstract available

A component-based approach to human–machine interface systems that support agile manufacturing

The development of next generation manufacturing systems is currently an active area of research worldwide. Globalisation is placing new demands on the manufacturing industry with products having shorter lifecycles and being required in more variants. Manufacturing systems must therefore be agile to support frequent manufacturing system reconfiguration involving globally distributed engineering partners. The research described in this thesis addresses one aspect within this research area, the Human Machine Interface (HMI) system that support the personnel involved in the monitoring, diagnostics and reconfiguration of automated manufacturing production machinery. Current HMI systems are monolithic in their design, generally offer poor connectivity to other manufacturing systems and require highly skilled personnel to develop and maintain them. The new approach established in the research and presented in this thesis provides a specification capture technique (using a novel storyboarding modelling notation) that enables the end users HMI functionality to be specified and rapidly developed into fully functional End User HMI's via automated generation tools. A novel feature in this HMI system architecture that all machine information is stored in a common unified machine data model which ensures consistent accurate machine data is available to all machine lifecycle engineering tools including the HMI. The system's run-time architecture enables remote monitoring and diagnostics capabilities to be available to geographically distributed engineering partners using standard internet technologies. The implementation of this novel HMI approach has been prototyped and evaluated using the industrial collaborators full scale demonstrator machines within cylinder head machining and engine assembly applications

Modeling and formal verification of probabilistic reconfigurable systems

In this thesis, we propose a new approach for formal modeling and verification of adaptive probabilistic systems. Dynamic reconfigurable systems are the trend of all future technological systems, such as flight control systems, vehicle electronic systems, and manufacturing systems. In order to meet user and environmental requirements, such a dynamic reconfigurable system has to actively adjust its configuration at run-time by modifying its components and connections, while changes are detected in the internal/external execution environment. On the other hand, these changes may violate the memory usage, the required energy and the concerned real-time constraints since the behavior of the system is unpredictable. It might also make the system's functions unavailable for some time and make potential harm to human life or large financial investments. Thus, updating a system with any new configuration requires that the post reconfigurable system fully satisfies the related constraints. We introduce GR-TNCES formalism for the optimal functional and temporal specification of probabilistic reconfigurable systems under resource constraints. It enables the optimal specification of a probabilistic, energetic and memory constraints of such a system. To formally verify the correctness and the safety of such a probabilistic system specification, and the non-violation of its properties, an automatic transformation from GR-TNCES models into PRISM models is introduced. Moreover, a new approach XCTL is also proposed to formally verify reconfigurable systems. It enables the formal certification of uncompleted and reconfigurable systems. A new version of the software ZIZO is also proposed to model, simulate and verify such GR-TNCES model. To prove its relevance, the latter was applied to case studies; it was used to model and simulate the behavior of an IPV4 protocol to prevent the energy and memory resources violation. It was also used to optimize energy consumption of an automotive skid conveyor.In dieser Arbeit wird ein neuer Ansatz zur formalen Modellierung und Verifikation dynamisch rekonfigurierbarer Systeme vorgestellt. Dynamische rekonfigurierbare Systeme sind in vielen aktuellen und zukünftigen Anwendungen, wie beispielsweise Flugsteuerungssystemen, Fahrzeugelektronik und Fertigungssysteme zu finden. Diese Systeme weisen ein probabilistisches, adaptives Verhalten auf. Um die Benutzer- und Umgebungsbedingungen kontinuierlich zu erfüllen, muss ein solches System seine Konfiguration zur Laufzeit aktiv anpassen, indem es seine Komponenten, Verbindungen zwischen Komponenten und seine Daten modifiziert (adaptiv), sobald Änderungen in der internen oder externen Ausführungsumgebung erkannt werden (probabilistisch). Diese Anpassungen dürfen Beschränkungen bei der Speichernutzung, der erforderlichen Energie und bestehende Echtzeitbedingungen nicht verletzen. Eine nicht geprüfte Rekonfiguration könnte dazu führen, dass die Funktionen des Systems für einige Zeit nicht verfügbar wären und potenziell menschliches Leben gefährdet würde oder großer finanzieller Schaden entstünde. Somit erfordert das Aktualisieren eines Systems mit einer neuen Konfiguration, dass das rekonfigurierte System die zugehörigen Beschränkungen vollständig einhält. Um dies zu überprüfen, wird in dieser Arbeit der GR-TNCES-Formalismus, eine Erweiterung von Petrinetzen, für die optimale funktionale und zeitliche Spezifikation probabilistischer rekonfigurierbarer Systeme unter Ressourcenbeschränkungen vorgeschlagen. Die entstehenden Modelle sollen über probabilistische model checking verifiziert werden. Dazu eignet sich die etablierte Software PRISM. Um die Verifikation zu ermöglichen wird in dieser Arbeit ein Verfahren zur Transformation von GR-TNCES-Modellen in PRISM-Modelle beschrieben. Eine neu eingeführte Logik (XCTL) erlaubt zudem die einfache Beschreibung der zu prüfenden Eigenschaften. Die genannten Schritte wurden in einer Softwareumgebung für den automatisierten Entwurf, die Simulation und die formale Verifikation (durch eine automatische Transformation nach PRISM) umgesetzt. Eine Fallstudie zeigt die Anwendung des Verfahren

Data representation for the control of full-automated microfactories.

International audienceThe increase greater than ever in the developments of microproducts leads us to consider the design of an automatic, flexible, reconfigurable and upgradeable microfactory. Thus defined, the microfactory has the ability to implement an infrastructure of automated manufacture in small or average batches, and will be able to prove the feasibility of automated production in greater quantity. Two main difficulties have been identified. First, the operator in charge of the production setting has accessibility problem in the microworld. Second, the permanent adaptation of the production system to the variations of the intrinsic parameters of the microworld. Consequently, such a concept of microfactory must assist the operator by the capitalization of last experiments and the restitution of acquired know-how. Taking into account the importance and diversity of information, our approach consists in defining all this technical information system. Our method went on a modeling of the microfactory under UML, using the “use-cases” and “classes” diagrams. The technical information system resulting from our work is the spinal cord of the microfactory, it will constitute the base of the piloting structure

Software framework for the development of context-aware reconfigurable systems

In this project we propose a new software framework for the development of context-aware and secure controlling software of distributed reconfigurable systems. Context-awareness is a key feature allowing the adaptation of systems behaviour according to the changing environment. We introduce a new definition of the term “context” for reconfigurable systems then we define a new context modelling and reasoning approach. Afterwards, we define a meta-model of context-aware reconfigurable applications that paves the way to the proposed framework. The proposed framework has a three-layer architecture: reconfiguration, context control, and services layer, where each layer has its well-defined role. We define also a new secure conversation protocol between distributed trustless parts based on the blockchain technology as well as the elliptic curve cryptography. To get better correctness and deployment guarantees of applications models in early development stages, we propose a new UML profile called GR-UML to add new semantics allowing the modelling of probabilistic scenarios running under memory and energy constraints, then we propose a methodology using transformations between the GR-UML, the GR-TNCES Petri nets formalism, and the IEC 61499 function blocks. A software tool implementing the methodology concepts is developed. To show the suitability of the mentioned contributions two case studies (baggage handling system and microgrids) are considered.In diesem Projekt schlagen wir ein Framework für die Entwicklung von kontextbewussten, sicheren Anwendungen von verteilten rekonfigurierbaren Systemen vor. Kontextbewusstheit ist eine Schlüsseleigenschaft, die die Anpassung des Systemverhaltens an die sich ändernde Umgebung ermöglicht. Wir führen eine Definition des Begriffs ``Kontext" für rekonfigurierbare Systeme ein und definieren dann einen Kontextmodellierungs- und Reasoning-Ansatz. Danach definieren wir ein Metamodell für kontextbewusste rekonfigurierbare Anwendungen, das den Weg zum vorgeschlagenen Framework ebnet. Das Framework hat eine dreischichtige Architektur: Rekonfigurations-, Kontextkontroll- und Dienste-Schicht, wobei jede Schicht ihre wohldefinierte Rolle hat. Wir definieren auch ein sicheres Konversationsprotokoll zwischen verteilten Teilen, das auf der Blockchain-Technologie sowie der elliptischen Kurven-Kryptographie basiert. Um bessere Korrektheits- und Einsatzgarantien für Anwendungsmodelle zu erhalten, schlagen wir ein UML-Profil namens GR-UML vor, um Semantik umzufassen, die die Modellierung probabilistischer Szenarien unter Speicher- und Energiebeschränkungen ermöglicht. Dann schlagen wir eine Methodik vor, die Transformationen zwischen GR-UML, dem GR-TNCES-Petrinetz-Formalismus und den IEC 61499-Funktionsblöcken verwendet. Es wird ein Software entwickelt, das die Konzepte der Methodik implementiert. Um die Eignung der genannten Beiträge zu zeigen, werden zwei Fallstudien betrachtet

Metamodeling Techniques Applied to the Design of Reconfigurable Control Applications

In order to realize autonomous manufacturing systems in environments characterized by high dynamics and high complexity of task, it is necessary to improve the control system modelling and performance. This requires the use of better and reusable abstractions. In this paper, we explore the metamodel techniques as a foundation to the solution of this problem. The increasing popularity of model-driven approaches and a new generation of tools to support metamodel techniques are changing software engineering landscape, boosting the adoption of new methodologies for control application development