Reaaliaikainen kaksisuuntainen tiedonsiirto digitaalisen kaksosen kanssa verkkorajapinnan kautta

Technological advancements in industry have paved way for the fourth industrial revolution called Industry 4.0. One critical aspect of this revolution is the usage of digital twins in product design, production, and service. A common depiction of a digital twin consists of three parts: a physical twin, its digital twin, and the data exchanged between them. In industry, one common solution for the data exchange between the digital twin and its physical twin is OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA) communication protocol. The protocol provides a solution to collect data from devices along an entire production line. Communication with OPC UA servers requires carefully studying the protocol specification, which can deter new developers from creating applications with the data collected by the servers. The goal of this thesis is to develop a web-based application program interface (API) that simplifies transferring data with an OPC UA server. The API is intended to be made with a popular technology that is already widely known among developers. It would lower the learning curve for utilizing the data on OPC UA servers. Thus, more developers can be tempted to start developing applications with the data. As the API is web-based, it is accessible by any web capable device bringing the data available to virtually any programming language and platform. Requirements for the API beyond the functionalities concern its efficiency and capability of handling real-time data exchange situations. To test the API’s performance, a case study is made: a web-based control application. The control application uses the API in real-time to both write control signals to and read sensor values from the OPC UA server. The API performance is evaluated by measuring its request completion time in both controlled environment and real use cases. The developed API was considered to be fast enough for user-based input and even applications that required fast synchronisation of values from different data sources. However, the API did add considerable latency compared using the OPC UA server directly which might be a problem in some applications that require extremely time sensitive data from the data server.Teknologian kehitys teollisuudessa on mahdollistanut neljännen teollisuuden vallankumouksen, jota kutsutaan myös nimellä Industry 4.0. Yksi tämän vallankumouksen tärkeitä puolia on digitaalisten kaksosten hyödyntäminen tuotesuunnittelussa, tuotannossa, sekä huoltamisessa. Yleensä digitaalisen kaksosen käsitteen sanotaan koostuvan kolmesta osasta: fyysisestä kaksosesta, sen digitaalisesta kaksosesta ja niiden välisestä tiedonsiirrosta. Teollisuudessa eräs yleinen tapa toteuttaa tiedonsiirto fyysisen ja digitaalisen kaksosen välillä on OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA) -kommunikaatioprotokollalla. Protokolla tarjoaa ratkaisun datan keruuseen koko tuotantolinjan prosesseista. Kommunikointi OPC UA -palvelimen kanssa vaatii protokollan määrittelyyn syventymistä, mikä saattaa lannistaa uusia kehittäjiä, jotka voisivat luoda sovelluksia palvelimen keräämälle datalle. Työn tavoitteena on kehittää web-pohjainen ohjelmointirajapinta, joka yksinkertaistaa sovellusten kehittämistä OPC UA -palvelimen kanssa. Ohjelmointirajapinta on tarkoitus kehittää ohjelmistokehittäjille tunnetulla teknologialla. Web-rajapinnalla voi laskea oppimiskynnystä OPC UA -palvelimen datan hyödyntämiseen. Tällöin uudet kehittäjät saattavat olla kiinnostuneempia kehittämään käyttökohteita datalle. Web-rajapinnalla on mahdollista tarjota data mille tahansa alustalle tai ohjelmointikielelle, jolla on webominaisuudet. Toiminnallisuuksien lisäksi rajapinnan vaatimukset kohdistuvat sen tehokkuuteen ja kykyyn käsitellä reaaliaikaista tiedonsiirtoa. Rajapinnan testausta varten tehdään tapaustutkimus: Web-pohjainen ohjaussovellus. Ohjaussovellus käyttää rajapintaa reaaliajassa kirjoittamaan ohjaussignaaleja, sekä lukemaan anturiarvoja OPC UA -palvelimelta. Rajapinnan suorituskykyä arvioidaan mittaamalla sen pyyntöjen suoritusaikoja sekä hallitussa ympäristössä, että tosikäyttötilanteissa. Kehitetty ohjelmointirajapinta todetaan testeissä tarpeeksi nopeaksi käyttäjäsyötteelle, sekä ohjelmille, jotka tarvitsevat nopeaa synkronointia arvoille eri tietolähteistä. Rajapinta kuitenkin lisäsi merkittävän viiveen verratessa sitä OPC UA -palvelimen suoraan käyttöön. Tämä saattaa aiheuttaa ongelmia joissain käyttötilanteissa, jotka tarvitsevat tarkkaa aikariippuvaista dataa palvelimelta

A Novel Design of Vitual and Mixed Reality Scenarios for Automation Training

A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Business and Technology at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree Master of Science by Andrés Salinas-Hernández on April 23, 2021

Aggregoiva OPC UA palvelin yleiseen tiedon yhdistämiseen

OPC UA is an industrial communication protocol that enables the modelling of complex information with semantics and exposing it in the address space of an OPC UA server. With developments such as the Industrial Internet of Things and Industrie 4.0, the amount of data in the industrial environment is increasing and it is provided by an increasing number of sources. This can lead to information becoming increasingly scattered, which creates difficulties and inefficiencies in getting a view of all the available information. This thesis presents the design and implementation of a software solution that can integrate information from multiple OPC UA source servers that provide information in different ways and from different viewpoints. An existing aggregating OPC UA server was improved based on elicited requirements to implement an integration platform that can group together and display the heterogeneous information sources in its specially organized address space. The developed software solution consists of three parts: instance aggregation, type aggregation and service mappings, that cooperate together to create the needed functionality. The implemented prototype solution was evaluated in several test cases and found to meet the goals set for it. The instance aggregation procedure is able to find and group relevant information from different sources, while the type aggregation and service mappings keep the type definitions of the aggregated information intact. The instance aggregation procedure can also be configured by the user with a set of rules that enable compatibility with different use case needs. In the future, the results of this thesis will be used as a starting point in the incremental development of improved versions of the aggregation feature.Teollisuudessa käytetty OPC UA -tiedonsiirtomäärittely mahdollistaa monimutkaisen tiedon ja semantiikan esittämisen UPC UA -palvelimen osoiteavaruudessa oliomallin avulla. Teollisen internetin ja Industrie 4.0:n viitoittama suunta teollisuudessa on lisääntyvä tiedon määrä yhä useammista tietolähteistä. Tämän seurauksena tieto voi pirstaloitua ja täten vaikeuttaa kokonaiskuvan saantia olemassaolevasta tiedosta. Tämä diplomityö esittelee suunnittelun ja toteutuksen ohjelmistolle, joka pystyy integroimaan tietoa useista eri OPC UA -lähdepalvelimista, jotka voivat esittää tietoa eri tavoin ja eri näkökulmista. Olemassaolevaa aggregoivaa OPC UA -palvelinta kehitettiin uusiin vaatimuksiin perustuen toteuttamaan integraatioalusta, joka voi ryhmitellä yhteen ja näyttää tietoa erilaisista lähteistä tarkoituksenmukaisesti järjestetyssä nimiavaruudessaan. Kehitetty ohjelmistoratkaisu koostuu kolmesta osasta: instanssien aggregoinnista, tyyppien aggregoinnista ja palvelukartoituksista, jotka toimivat yhdessä tuottaakseen tarvittavan toiminnallisuuden. Kehitettyä prototyyppiratkaisua arvioitiin useissa testitapauksissa ja sen havaittiin täyttävän sille asetetut tavoitteet. Instanssien aggregointi pystyy löytämään ja ryhmittelemään yhteenkuuluvat tiedot eri lähteistä, kun taas tyyppien aggregointi ja palvelukartoitukset pitävät aggregoidun tiedon tyypppimäärittelyt muuttumattomina. Käyttäjä voi konfiguroida instanssien aggregointia käyttämällä erityisiä sääntömäärittelyjä, jotka mahdollistavat aggregointiprosessin yhteensopivuuden eri käyttötarpeiden kanssa. Tulevaisuudessa tässä opinnäytetyössä saatuja tuloksia käytetään lähtökohtana aggregointitoiminnallisuuden asteittaisesssa jatkokehittämisessä

A Sequential Control Language for Industrial Automation

Current market trends for industrial automation are the need for customizable production, shorter time to market, and powerful global competitive pressure. Based on these trends two challenges have been identified: 1) flexible production systems and 2) integration and utilization of devices and software. Applications from both process automation, manufacturing, and robotics have been considered. More flexible languages and tools are needed to get a flexible production system. The graphical programming language Grafchart, based on the IEC 61131-3 standard language Sequential Function Charts (SFC), is considered with the aim to make both the language and its implementation more flexible. In particular, new constructs have been added to the Grafchart language and modern compiler techniques are evaluated for JGrafchart, a Grafchart implementation, with focus on an extensible language implementation. A first step toward real-time execution of Grafchart applications is also taken to make it possible to use Grafchart for hard real-time control. High execution rates often reveal concurrency issues and thus execution concurrency has also been investigated. Access to more data from industrial devices and software can be used to optimize production. Architectures for factory integration have been considered as this is the foundation to connect all devices and thus address the challenge of integrating and utilizing devices and software. Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a flexible software design methodology widely used in IT systems and for business processes. SOA service orchestration is brought to industrial automation by integrating support for both Devices Profile for Web Services (DPWS) and OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA) in JGrafchart. Looking further, SOA 2.0 is event driven and features extremely loose coupling between components. An architecture based on SOA 2.0 where it is easy to integrate any device or software, in particular legacy devices with limited knowledge and capabilities, has been developed with focus on service choreography in industrial manufacturing. Another step toward real-time execution of Grafchart applications is integrated support for the high performance communication protocol LabComm. Additionally, it is investigated how Grafchart can be connected to Functional Mock-up Interface (FMI) for co-simulation to further address the shorter time to market trend by introducing simulation support. The PID controller is the most common controller for industrial automation. A PID implementation has been added to a Grafchart library and a flaw with the PID algorithm has been discovered. The problem occurs for PID controllers with a derivative part when the process value saturates. The derivative part then backs off which leads to undesired changes in the control signal. This issue has been analyzed and a solution to the problem is proposed

Cyber-security of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS)

This master's thesis reports on security of a Cyber-Physical System (CPS) in the department of industrial engineering at UiT campus Narvik. The CPS targets connecting distinctive robots in the laboratory in the department of industrial engineering. The ultimate objective of the department is to propose such a system for the industry. The thesis focuses on the network architecture of the CPS and the availability principle of security. This report states three research questions that are aimed to be answered. The questions are: what a secure CPS architecture for the purpose of the existing system is, how far the current state of system is from the defined secure architecture, and how to reach the proposed architecture. Among the three question, the first questions has absorbed the most attention of this project. The reason is that a secure and robust architecture would provide a touchstone that makes answering the second and third questions easier. In order to answer the questions, Cisco SAFE for IoT threat defense for manufacturing approach is chosen. The architectural approach of Cisco SAFE for IoT, with similarities to the Cisco SAFE for secure campus networks, provides a secure network architecture based on business flows/use cases and defining related security capabilities. This approach supplies examples of scenarios, business flows, and security capabilities that encouraged selecting it. It should be noted that Cisco suggests its proprietary technologies for security capabilities. According to the need of the project owners and the fact that allocating funds are not favorable for them, all the suggested security capabilities are intended to be open-source, replacing the costly Cisco-proprietary suggestions. Utilizing the approach and the computer networking fundamentals resulted in the proposed secure network architecture. The proposed architecture is used as a touchstone to evaluate the existing state of the CPS in the department of industrial engineering. Following that, the required security measures are presented to approach the system to the proposed architecture. Attempting to apply the method of Cisco SAFE, the identities using the system and their specific activities are presented as the business flow. Based on the defined business flow, the required security capabilities are selected. Finally, utilizing the provided examples of Cisco SAFE documentations, a complete network architecture is generated. The architecture consists of five zones that include the main components, security capabilities, and networking devices (such as switches and access points). Investigating the current state of the CPS and evaluating it by the proposed architecture and the computer networking fundamentals, helped identifying six important shortcomings. Developing on the noted shortcomings, and identification of open-source alternatives for the Cisco-proprietary technologies, nine security measures are proposed. The goal is to perform all the security measures. Thus, the implementations and solutions for each security measure is noted at the end of the presented results. The security measures that require purchasing a device were not considered in this project. The reasons for this decision are the time-consuming process of selecting an option among different alternatives, and the prior need for grasping the features of the network with the proposed security capabilities; features such as amount and type of traffic inside the network, and possible incidents detected using an Intrusion Detection Prevention System. The attempts to construct a secure cyber-physical system is an everlasting procedure. New threats, best practices, guidelines, and standards are introduced on a daily basis. Moreover, business needs could vary from time to time. Therefore, the selected security life-cycle is required and encouraged to be used in order to supply a robust lasting cyber-physical system

Smart factory benefits and specification for piloting

Abstract. This thesis aims to build a base for the road towards a smart factory and gather information about the field by examining related technologies, requirements and challenges, and available solutions from Finnish providers. Through these examinations, occurring challenges in the reference location are highlighted and ideas to tackle these are proposed, most suitable technologies and use cases are described, and the pilot is designed around the most suitable solution. In addition, an overview of the factory is examined, and ongoing projects and suitable data gathering methods are described so that the current situation, development activities, and necessary methods for data gathering are known. To gather all this information, a literature review, survey, and straight contacts were made. A literature review was used for the examination of the key areas of the topic, a survey to examine the occurring challenges, and straight contacts to gather the information about the available solutions and production. Based on the findings, the pilot is designed, a roadmap of the future steps is proposed, and to conclude the topic achievable benefits and specification for the piloting are described. This research led to the conclusion that the current situation is at the Industry 3.0 stage and there are some challenges on the road toward the era of Industry 4.0. In addition, many solutions and technologies are already available, and some ongoing projects are related to these. Now is the time to make the vision clear and compile all the individual projects together and change the target towards building a smart factory.Älykkään tehtaan hyödyt ja vaatimusmäärittely pilotoinnille. Tiivistelmä. Tämän diplomityön tavoitteena on rakentaa pohja älykkäälle tehtaalle ja sen pilotoinnille sekä kerryttää tietoa aihepiiristä. Pohjan rakentamisen keskiössä on aihepiiriin liittyvien teknologioiden, vaatimusten ja haasteiden sekä suomalaisten toimittajien tarjoamien ratkaisuiden tutkiminen. Tutkimusten pohjalta referenssikohteessa esiintyviä haasteita nostetaan esille ja niihin ehdotetaan ratkaisuja, sopivimpia teknologioita ja käyttökohteita esitellään ja pilotointi suunnitellaan sopivinta ratkaisua hyödyntäen. Näiden lisäksi tehtaan yleiskuvaa käydään läpi, aihepiiriin liittyviä meneillään olevia projekteja tarkastellaan ja sopivimpia datan keräysmentelmiä esitellään, jotta tehtaan tehtaan nykytila, meneillään olevat aihepiirin kehityshankkeet ja vaadittavat datan keräysmentelmät tiedetään. Näiden tietojen koostamiseksi hyödynnettiin kirjallisuuskatsausta, kyselyä sekä suoraa kontaktointia ratkaisujen tarjoajiin sekä tuotannon työnjohtajiin ja tuotannonsuunnittelijaan. Kirjallisuuskatsauksella hankittiin tietoa aihepiiristä ja siihen liittyvistä teknologioista, kyselyllä selvitettiin referenssikohteessa esiintyviä haasteita ja suoralla kontaktoinnilla hankittiin tietoa tarjolla olevista ratkaisuista ja tuotantoon liittyvistä asioista. Tulosten pohjalta suunnitellaan ratkaisun pilotointi, kehitetään tiekartta tulevista askelista ja tiivistetään saavutettavat hyödyt ja vaatimusmäärittely, jotta saavutetaan otsikon mukainen kokonaisuus. Tämä tutkimus on osoittanut, että tehtaan nykytila on teollisuus 3.0 tasolla ja matkalla kohti teollisuus 4.0 aikakautta haasteita tulee esiintymään. Lisäksi useita aihepiirin ratkaisuita ja teknologioita on jo tarjolla sekä osa meneillään olevista projekteista liittyy näihin. Nyt olisi hyvä aika kirkastaa visiota, yhdistää näitä yksittäisiä projekteja yhteen ja muuttaa kokonaisuuden suunta kohti älykkään tehtaan rakentamista

Digital Twins in Industry

Digital Twins in Industry is a compilation of works by authors with specific emphasis on industrial applications. Much of the research on digital twins has been conducted by the academia in both theoretical considerations and laboratory-based prototypes. Industry, while taking the lead on larger scale implementations of Digital Twins (DT) using sophisticated software, is concentrating on dedicated solutions that are not within the reach of the average-sized industries. This book covers 11 chapters of various implementations of DT. It provides an insight for companies who are contemplating the adaption of the DT technology, as well as researchers and senior students in exploring the potential of DT and its associated technologies