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

An approach to open virtual commissioning for component-based automation

Increasing market demands for highly customised products with shorter time-to-market and at lower prices are forcing manufacturing systems to be built and operated in a more efficient ways. In order to overcome some of the limitations in traditional methods of automation system engineering, this thesis focuses on the creation of a new approach to Virtual Commissioning (VC). In current VC approaches, virtual models are driven by pre-programmed PLC control software. These approaches are still time-consuming and heavily control expertise-reliant as the required programming and debugging activities are mainly performed by control engineers. Another current limitation is that virtual models validated during VC are difficult to reuse due to a lack of tool-independent data models. Therefore, in order to maximise the potential of VC, there is a need for new VC approaches and tools to address these limitations. The main contributions of this research are: (1) to develop a new approach and the related engineering tool functionality for directly deploying PLC control software based on component-based VC models and reusable components; and (2) to build tool-independent common data models for describing component-based virtual automation systems in order to enable data reusability. [Continues.

Coordination of Operations by Relation Extraction for Manufacturing Cell Controllers

A method for generation of the control function for flexible manufacturing cells is presented in this paper. The control function is separated from the rest of the PLC program, and partitioned into a high-level part handling the operation sequence and a low-level part defining the execution process of the operations. The program structure enables high-level supervisor synthesis, which alleviates the state-space explosion problem. Information present in earlier steps of the development process is reused and processed, to automatically generate the automata needed for supervisor synthesis. An algorithm for generating automata, from the low-level safety requirements that restrict the high-level behavior, is presented. Algorithms are also presented for extracting the relations between the operations defining the work in the cell, from the synthesized supervisor. These relations give an easy-to-read representation of the control function that makes it interpretable by machine operators and maintenance personnel, an important feature to make the method applicable in an industrial setting. Hence, the control function generated by our method combines the benefits of a traditional supervisor, namely optimality and flexibility, with simplicity and clarity