Internet of robotic things : converging sensing/actuating, hypoconnectivity, artificial intelligence and IoT Platforms

The Internet of Things (IoT) concept is evolving rapidly and influencing newdevelopments in various application domains, such as the Internet of MobileThings (IoMT), Autonomous Internet of Things (A-IoT), Autonomous Systemof Things (ASoT), Internet of Autonomous Things (IoAT), Internetof Things Clouds (IoT-C) and the Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT) etc.that are progressing/advancing by using IoT technology. The IoT influencerepresents new development and deployment challenges in different areassuch as seamless platform integration, context based cognitive network integration,new mobile sensor/actuator network paradigms, things identification(addressing, naming in IoT) and dynamic things discoverability and manyothers. The IoRT represents new convergence challenges and their need to be addressed, in one side the programmability and the communication ofmultiple heterogeneous mobile/autonomous/robotic things for cooperating,their coordination, configuration, exchange of information, security, safetyand protection. Developments in IoT heterogeneous parallel processing/communication and dynamic systems based on parallelism and concurrencyrequire new ideas for integrating the intelligent “devices”, collaborativerobots (COBOTS), into IoT applications. Dynamic maintainability, selfhealing,self-repair of resources, changing resource state, (re-) configurationand context based IoT systems for service implementation and integrationwith IoT network service composition are of paramount importance whennew “cognitive devices” are becoming active participants in IoT applications.This chapter aims to be an overview of the IoRT concept, technologies,architectures and applications and to provide a comprehensive coverage offuture challenges, developments and applications

Software methodologies for the engineering of service-oriented industrial automation: the continuum project

Indexado InspecService-orientation represents a new wave of features and solutions by bringing closer Information Technology to the industrial domain, particularly factory shop floors. The service-oriented automation software entities (designated here by bots) used in such approach requires a short set of methodologies and software targeting their specification for both computer systems and embedded automation devices. The present work explains the adopted methodologies and software developments for the engineering of service-based automation systems. The main contents focus on the specification of a framework for the development of bots and supporting engineering tools that are part of the Continuum project. The paper also does an overview over the engineering steps from the system design to the operation, and focuses the importance of the maintenance of automation bots. Such applications will contribute to decrease the development time and reduce the components' interdependency, offering enough flexibility for automatic reconfiguration of shop-floor layouts.The authors would like to thank the European Commission and the partners of the EU IST FP6 project “Service-Oriented Cross-layer infrastructure for Distributed smart Embedded devices” (SOCRADES), the EU FP6 “Network of Excellence for Innovative Production Machines and Systems” (I*PROMS), and the European ICT FP7 project “Cooperating Objects Network of Excellence” (CONET) for their support

Engineering framework for service-oriented automation systems

Tese de doutoramento. Engenharia Informática. Universidade do Porto. Faculdade de Engenharia. 201

Modularity and Architecture of PLC-based Software for Automated Production Systems: An analysis in industrial companies

Adaptive and flexible production systems require modular and reusable software especially considering their long term life cycle of up to 50 years. SWMAT4aPS, an approach to measure Software Maturity for automated Production Systems is introduced. The approach identifies weaknesses and strengths of various companie's solutions for modularity of software in the design of automated Production Systems (aPS). At first, a self assessed questionnaire is used to evaluate a large number of companies concerning their software maturity. Secondly, we analyze PLC code, architectural levels, workflows and abilities to configure code automatically out of engineering information in four selected companies. In this paper, the questionnaire results from 16 German world leading companies in machine and plant manufacturing and four case studies validating the results from the detailed analyses are introduced to prove the applicability of the approach and give a survey of the state of the art in industry

Changing Patterns in Process Management and Improvement: Using RPA and RDA in Non- Manufacturing Organizations

Being, from the first sight, a complementary part of process management within an organization, process management automation draws a very broad and promising perspective to the whole business field since it is a step closer to the smarter and next level efficiency. Therefore, this particular theoretical scientific research elaborates the topic of the application of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Robotic Desktop Automation (RDA) concepts within the work activities in non-manufacturing organizations as this is a non-widely examined area and offers the whole specter of opportunities. Therefore, focuses are based on process management in organizations where client service is key activity and direction with soft systems and operations used as working tools. In addition, a comparative analysis of key similarities and differences of terms and practical application of RPA/RDA within the manufacturing and non-manufacturing sector is provided. Problematic areas, which this particular topic escalates, have a wide framework: first, it is noticed that the scientific field regarding the application of RPA and related concepts in combination with other process management methods (for example, Lean, Agile or Business Process Management (BPM)) has not been widely discussed. Second, in generally most of the past and ongoing scientific researches and practices tendencies and problems in process automation within the manufacturing sector field have been investigated. Accordingly, it is missing both quantitative and qualitative analyses of past and current situations in non-manufacturing business and public organizations. To generalize, it is agreed that process automation has made a notorious impact not only on the tendencies of process management within the business field but also on a society as a human resource. Therefore, investigation of this topic as a very relevant subject is essential since it has a direct and very strong impact on business cycles, technological evolution, and job market