Agent-based middleware architecture for reconfigurable manufacturing systems

Modern manufacturing systems are expected to be flexible and efficient in order to cope with challenging market demands. Thus, they must be flexible enough as to meet changing requirements such as changes in production, energy efficiency, performance optimization, fault tolerance to process or controller faults, among others. Demanding requirements can be defined as a set of quality of service (QoS) requirements to be met. This paper proposes a generic and customizable multi-agent architecture that, making use of distributed agents, monitors QoS, triggering, if needed, a reconfiguration of the control system to recover QoS. As a proof of concept, the architecture has been implemented to provide availability of the control system understood as service continuity. The prototype has been tested in a case study consisting of an assembly cell where assessment of the approach has been conducted.This work was financed by the MINECO/FEDER under project DPI2015-68602-R

Internet enabled modelling of extended manufacturing enterprises using the process based techniques

The paper presents the preliminary results of an ongoing research project on Internet enabled process-based modelling of extended manufacturing enterprises. It is proposed to apply the Open System Architecture for CIM (CIMOSA) modelling framework alongside with object-oriented Petri Net models of enterprise processes and object-oriented techniques for extended enterprises modelling. The main features of the proposed approach are described and some components discussed. Elementary examples of object-oriented Petri Net implementation and real-time visualisation are presented

Integrated automation for manufacturing of electronic assemblies

Since 1985, the Naval Ocean Systems Center has been identifying and developing needed technology for flexible manufacturing of hybrid microelectronic assemblies. Specific projects have been accomplished through contracts with manufacturing companies, equipment suppliers, and joint efforts with other government agencies. The resulting technology has been shared through semi-annual meetings with government, industry, and academic representatives who form an ad hoc advisory panel. More than 70 major technical capabilities have been identified for which new development is needed. Several of these developments have been completed and are being shared with industry

Automatic generation of human machine interface screens from component-based reconfigurable virtual manufacturing cell

Increasing complexity and decreasing time-tomarket require changes in the traditional way of building automation systems. The paper describes a novel approach to automatically generate the Human Machine Interface (HMI) screens for component-based manufacturing cells based on their corresponding virtual models. Manufacturing cells are first prototyped and commissioned within a virtual engineering environment to validate and optimise the control behaviour. A framework for reusing the embedded control information in the virtual models to automatically generate the HMI screens is proposed. Finally, for proof of concept, the proposed solution is implemented and tested on a test rig

MULTIAGENT SYSTEMS FOR SHOP FLOOR ARHITECTURE MANAGEMENT

The paper presents the problem of shop floor agility. In order to cope with the disturbances and uncertainties that characterise the current business scenarios faced by manufacturing companies, the capability of their shop floors needs to be improved quickly, such that these shop floors may be adapted, changed or become easily modifiable (shop floor reengineering). One of the critical elements in any shop floor reengineering process is the way the control/supervision architecture is changed or modified to accommodate for the new process and equipment. This paper, therefore, proposes an multi-agent architecture to support the fast adaptation or changes in the control/supervision architecture.multi-agent system, shop floor agility, control/supervision architecture, virtual organisation.

Enhanced cell controller for aerospace manufacturing

Aerospace manufacturing industry is unique in that production typically focuses on high variety and quality but extremely low volume. Manufacturing processes are also sometimes unique and not repeatable and, hence, costly. Production is getting more expensive with the introduction of industrial robots and their cells. This paper describes the development of the Flexa Cell Coordinator (FCC), a system that is providing a solution to manage resources at assembly cell level. It can control, organise and coordinate between the resources and is capable of controlling remote cells and resources because of its distributed nature. It also gives insight of a system to the higher management via its rich reporting facility and connectivity with company systems e.g., Enterprise Resource Planner (ERP). It is able to control various kinds of cells and resources (network based) which are not limited to robots and machines. It is extendable and capable of adding multiple numbers of cells inside the system. It also provides the facility of scheduling the task to avoid the deadlocking in the process. In FCC resources (e.g., tracker) can also be shared between cells

A survey of simulation techniques in commerce and defence

Despite the developments in Modelling and Simulation (M&S) tools and techniques over the past years, there has been a gap in the M&S research and practice in healthcare on developing a toolkit to assist the modellers and simulation practitioners with selecting an appropriate set of techniques. This study is a preliminary step towards this goal. This paper presents some results from a systematic literature survey on applications of M&S in the commerce and defence domains that could inspire some improvements in the healthcare. Interim results show that in the commercial sector Discrete-Event Simulation (DES) has been the most widely used technique with System Dynamics (SD) in second place. However in the defence sector, SD has gained relatively more attention. SD has been found quite useful for qualitative and soft factors analysis. From both the surveys it becomes clear that there is a growing trend towards using hybrid M&S approaches

Automated Design of Tissue Engineering Scaffolds by Advanced CAD

The design of scaffolds with an intricate and controlled internal structure represents a challenge for Tissue Engineering. Several scaffold manufacturing techniques allow the creation of complex and random architectures, but have little or no control over geometrical parameters such as pore size, shape and interconnectivity- things that are essential for tissue regeneration. The combined use of CAD software and layer manufacturing techniques allow a high degree of control over those parameters, resulting in reproducible geometrical architectures. However, the design of the complex and intricate network of channels that are required in conventional CAD, is extremely time consuming: manually setting thousands of different geometrical parameters may require several days in which to design the individual scaffold structures. This research proposes an automated design methodology in order to overcome those limitations. The combined use of Object Oriented Programming and advanced CAD software, allows the rapid generation of thousands of different geometrical elements. Each has a different set of parameters that can be changed by the software, either randomly or according to a given mathematical formula, so that they match the different distribution of geometrical elements such as pore size and pore interconnectivity. This work describes a methodology that has been used to design five cubic scaffolds with pore size ranging from about 200 to 800 µm, each with an increased complexity of the internal geometry.Mechanical Engineerin