275 research outputs found
Sustainability Benefits Analysis of CyberManufacturing Systems
Confronted with growing sustainability awareness, mounting environmental pressure, meeting modern customers’ demand and the need to develop stronger market competitiveness, the manufacturing industry is striving to address sustainability-related issues in manufacturing. A new manufacturing system called CyberManufacturing System (CMS) has a great potential in addressing sustainability issues by handling manufacturing tasks differently and better than traditional manufacturing systems. CMS is an advanced manufacturing system where physical components are fully integrated and seamlessly networked with computational processes. The recent developments in Internet of Things, Cloud Computing, Fog Computing, Service-Oriented Technologies, etc., all contribute to the development of CMS. Under the context of this new manufacturing paradigm, every manufacturing resource or capability is digitized, registered and shared with all the networked users and stakeholders directly or through the Internet. CMS infrastructure enables intelligent behaviors of manufacturing components and systems such as self-monitoring, self-awareness, self-prediction, self-optimization, self-configuration, self-scalability, self-remediating and self-reusing. Sustainability benefits of CMS are generally mentioned in the existing researches. However, the existing sustainability studies of CMS focus a narrow scope of CMS (e.g., standalone machines and specific industrial domains) or partial aspects of sustainability analysis (e.g., solely from energy consumption or material consumption perspectives), and thus no research has comprehensively addressed the sustainability analysis of CMS. The proposed research intends to address these gaps by developing a comprehensive definition, architecture, functionality study of CMS for sustainability benefits analysis. A sustainability assessment framework based on Distance-to-Target methodology is developed to comprehensively and objectively evaluate manufacturing systems’ sustainability performance. Three practical cases are captured as examples for instantiating all CMS functions and analyzing the advancements of CMS in addressing concrete sustainability issues. As a result, CMS has proven to deliver substantial sustainability benefits in terms of (i) the increment of productivity, production quality, profitability & facility utilization and (ii) the reduction in Working-In-Process (WIP) inventory level & material consumption compared with the alternative traditional manufacturing system paradigms
A Smart Products Lifecycle Management (sPLM) Framework - Modeling for Conceptualization, Interoperability, and Modularity
Autonomy and intelligence have been built into many of today’s mechatronic products, taking advantage of low-cost sensors and advanced data analytics technologies. Design of product intelligence (enabled by analytics capabilities) is no longer a trivial or additional option for the product development. The objective of this research is aimed at addressing the challenges raised by the new data-driven design paradigm for smart products development, in which the product itself and the smartness require to be carefully co-constructed.
A smart product can be seen as specific compositions and configurations of its physical components to form the body, its analytics models to implement the intelligence, evolving along its lifecycle stages. Based on this view, the contribution of this research is to expand the “Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)” concept traditionally for physical products to data-based products. As a result, a Smart Products Lifecycle Management (sPLM) framework is conceptualized based on a high-dimensional Smart Product Hypercube (sPH) representation and decomposition.
First, the sPLM addresses the interoperability issues by developing a Smart Component data model to uniformly represent and compose physical component models created by engineers and analytics models created by data scientists. Second, the sPLM implements an NPD3 process model that incorporates formal data analytics process into the new product development (NPD) process model, in order to support the transdisciplinary information flows and team interactions between engineers and data scientists. Third, the sPLM addresses the issues related to product definition, modular design, product configuration, and lifecycle management of analytics models, by adapting the theoretical frameworks and methods for traditional product design and development.
An sPLM proof-of-concept platform had been implemented for validation of the concepts and methodologies developed throughout the research work. The sPLM platform provides a shared data repository to manage the product-, process-, and configuration-related knowledge for smart products development. It also provides a collaborative environment to facilitate transdisciplinary collaboration between product engineers and data scientists
Agent-based manufacturing — review and expert evaluation
The advent of smart manufacturing and the exposure to a new generation of technological enablers have revolutionized the way manufacturing process is carried out. Cyber-Physical Production Systems (CPPS) are introduced as main actors of this manufacturing shift. They are characterized for having high levels of communication, integration and computational capabilities that led them to a certain level of autonomy. Despite the high expectations and vision of CPPS, it still remains an exploratory topic. Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) have been widely used by software engineers to solve traditional computing problems, e.g., banking transactions. Because of their high levels of distribution and autonomous capabilities, MAS have been considered by the research community as a good solution to design and implement CPPS. This work first introduces a collection of requirements and characteristics of smart manufacturing. A comprehensive review of various research applications is presented to understand the current state of the art and the application of agent technology in manufacturing. Considering the smart manufacturing requirements and current research application, a SWOT analysis was formulated which identifies pros and cons of the implementation of agents in industry. The SWOT analysis was further validated by an industrial expert evaluation and the main findings and discussion of the results are presented
System-in-package for IoT sigfox applications
In this work, the System-in-Package (SiP) electronic circuit manufacturing technology is presented as an economically viable alternative for implementing solutions where circuits processed in different technologies need to be integrated into a single, compact device. This technology is explored here through the development of a complete hardware plat form designed for implementing devices for the Internet of Things (IoT) in the SigFox standard. The platform consists of an RF front-end module, a sub-GHz radio transceiver capable of operating in any global SigFox configuration, and an ARM M0+ microcon troller with 64 Kbytes of Flash memory, 8 Kbytes of RAM, a 2Kbyte EEPROM, a 12-bit 1.14Msps analog-to-digital multi-channel interface, a 12-bit digital-to-analog interface, ultra-low-power comparators for implementing a wake-up system, and a complete set of digital communication peripherals. In addition to this SiP, only a power source (e.g. two AAA batteries) and an antenna are required to implement applications on the SigFox network. The system integrates an MCU, a radio transceiver, and an RF front-end module, enabling global operation of this device through Sigfox Monarch technology. The SiP operates from a supply voltage of 2.7-3.6 V, and its RF output power is programmable in the range of -30 dBm to 26 dBm. Operating at a supply voltage of 3.3V, it consumes 188.5 mA or 23 mA for RF output power of 22 dBm or 12.8 dBm, at 902.2MHz and 868.13 MHz, respectively. The device also offers a current consumption of 3 µ A in deep sleep mode. The proposed SiP design has successfully met all the requirements for Sigfox Verified certification, enabling the Sigfox Monarch function as well. Currently, it represents the solution with the smallest dimensions approved for Sigfox in the global market, measur ing only 13 mm × 13 mm × 1.1 mm.Neste trabalho é apresentada a tecnologia de fabricação de circuitos eletrônicos System in-Package (SiP), que se oferece como uma alternativa economicamente interessante para a implementação de soluções, onde circuitos processados em tecnologias diversas devem ser integrados em um único dispositivo de tamanho mínimo. Esta tecnologia é aqui explorada através do desenvolvimento de uma plataforma completa de hardware, voltada à implementação de dispositivos para a Internet das Coisas (IoT) no padrão SigFox. Esta plataforma é composta por um módulo front-end de RF, um rádio transceptor sub-GHz, capaz de operar em qualquer configuração global do padrão SigFox, além de um micro controlador ARM M0+, com 64 Kbytes de memória Flash, 8 Kbytes de memória RAM, uma EEPROM de 2Kbytes, interface multi-canal analógico-digital de 12 bits e 1.14Msps, interface digital-analógico de 12 bits, comparadores ultra-low-power para implementação de um sistema de wake-up e linha completa de periféricos de comunicação digital. Além deste SiP, é necessário apenas a conexão de uma fonte de energia (bateria ou 2 pilhas AAA) e de uma antena, para implementar aplicações ma rede SigFox. O sistema integra uma MCU, um rádio transceptor e um módulo front-end de RF, que habilita a operação global deste dispositivo através da tecnologia Sigfox Monarch. O SiP trabalha a partir de uma tensão de alimentação de 2.7-3.6 V e sua potência de saída de RF é programável na faixa de -30 dBm até 26 dBm. Operando com uma tensão de alimentação de 3.3V, ele consome 188.5 mA ou 23 mA para a potência de saída de RF de 22 dBm ou 12.8 dBm, em 902.2MHz e 868.13 MHz respectivamente. O dispositivo também oferece um consumo de corrente de 3 µA no modo deep sleep. O design de SiP proposto, atingiu todos os requisitos da certificação Sigfox Verified com sucesso, habilitando também a função Sigfox Monarch, representando atualmente a solução com as menores dimensões homologada para SigFox no mercado mundial, com apenas 13 mm × 13 mm × 1.1 mm
Reinforced Polymer Composites
This book, consisting of 21 articles, including three review papers, written by research groups of experts in the field, considers recent research on reinforced polymer composites. Most of them relate to the fiber-reinforced polymer composites, which are a real hot topic in the field. Depending on the reinforcing fiber nature, such composites are divided into synthetic and natural fiber-reinforced ones. Synthetic fibers, such as carbon, glass, or basalt, provide more stiffness, while natural fibers, such as jute, flax, bamboo, kenaf, and others, are inexpensive and biodegradable, making them environmentally friendly. To acquire the benefits of design flexibility and recycling possibilities, natural reinforcers can be hybridized with small amounts of synthetic fibers to make them more desirable for technical applications. Elaborated composites have great potential as structural materials in automotive, marine and aerospace application, as fire resistant concrete, in bridge systems, as mechanical gear pair, as biomedical materials for dentistry and orthopedic application and tissue engineering, as well as functional materials such as proton-exchange membranes, biodegradable superabsorbent resins and polymer electrolytes
Index to 1984 NASA Tech Briefs, volume 9, numbers 1-4
Short announcements of new technology derived from the R&D activities of NASA are presented. These briefs emphasize information considered likely to be transferrable across industrial, regional, or disciplinary lines and are issued to encourage commercial application. This index for 1984 Tech B Briefs contains abstracts and four indexes: subject, personal author, originating center, and Tech Brief Number. The following areas are covered: electronic components and circuits, electronic systems, physical sciences, materials, life sciences, mechanics, machinery, fabrication technology, and mathematics and information sciences
Scientific Advances in STEM
Following a previous topic (Scientific advances in STEM: from professors to students; https://www.mdpi.com/topics/advances_stem), this new topic aims to highlight the importance of establishing collaborations among research groups from different disciplines, combining the scientific knowledge from basic to applied research as well as taking advantage of different research facilities. Fundamental science helps us to understand phenomenological basics, while applied science focuses on products and technology developments, highlighting the need to perform a transference of knowledge to society and the industrial sector
Photovoltaic energy systems: Program summary fiscal year 1983
An overview of government funded activities in photovoltaic energy conversion research is given. Introductory information, a list of directing organizations, a list of acronyms and abbreviations, and an index of current contractors are given
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