Agent and cyber-physical system based self-organizing and self-adaptive intelligent shopfloor

The increasing demand of customized production results in huge challenges to the traditional manufacturing systems. In order to allocate resources timely according to the production requirements and to reduce disturbances, a framework for the future intelligent shopfloor is proposed in this paper. The framework consists of three primary models, namely the model of smart machine agent, the self-organizing model, and the self-adaptive model. A cyber-physical system for manufacturing shopfloor based on the multiagent technology is developed to realize the above-mentioned function models. Gray relational analysis and the hierarchy conflict resolution methods were applied to achieve the self-organizing and self-adaptive capabilities, thereby improving the reconfigurability and responsiveness of the shopfloor. A prototype system is developed, which has the adequate flexibility and robustness to configure resources and to deal with disturbances effectively. This research provides a feasible method for designing an autonomous factory with exception-handling capabilities

Agent-based distributed manufacturing control: a state-of-the-art survey

Manufacturing has faced significant changes during the last years, namely the move from a local economy towards a global and competitive economy, with markets demanding for highly customized products of high quality at lower costs, and with short life cycles. In this environment, manufacturing enterprises, to remain competitive, must respond closely to customer demands by improving their flexibility and agility, while maintaining their productivity and quality. Dynamic response to emergence is becoming a key issue in manufacturing field because traditional manufacturing control systems are built upon rigid control architectures, which cannot respond efficiently and effectively to dynamic change. In these circumstances, the current challenge is to develop manufacturing control systems that exhibit intelligence, robustness and adaptation to the environment changes and disturbances. The introduction of multi-agent systems and holonic manufacturing systems paradigms addresses these requirements, bringing the advantages of modularity, decentralization, autonomy, scalability and re- usability. This paper surveys the literature in manufacturing control systems using distributed artificial intelligence techniques, namely multi-agent systems and holonic manufacturing systems principles. The paper also discusses the reasons for the weak adoption of these approaches by industry and points out the challenges and research opportunities for the future

Eco‐Holonic 4.0 Circular Business Model to Conceptualize Sustainable Value Chain Towards Digital Transition

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize a circular business model based on an Eco-Holonic Architecture, through the integration of circular economy and holonic principles. A conceptual model is developed to manage the complexity of integrating circular economy principles, digital transformation, and tools and frameworks for sustainability into business models. The proposed architecture is multilevel and multiscale in order to achieve the instantiation of the sustainable value chain in any territory. The architecture promotes the incorporation of circular economy and holonic principles into new circular business models. This integrated perspective of business model can support the design and upgrade of the manufacturing companies in their respective industrial sectors. The conceptual model proposed is based on activity theory that considers the interactions between technical and social systems and allows the mitigation of the metabolic rift that exists between natural and social metabolism. This study contributes to the existing literature on circular economy, circular business models and activity theory by considering holonic paradigm concerns, which have not been explored yet. This research also offers a unique holonic architecture of circular business model by considering different levels, relationships, dynamism and contextualization (territory) aspects

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

Evolvable production systems in a RMS context: enabling concepts and technologies

The goal of this paper is to describe the research on Evolvable Production Systems (EPS) in the context of Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (RMS), and to briefly describe a multiagent based control solution. RMS, Holonic and EPS concepts are briefly described and compared. Novel inspiration areas and concepts to solve the demanding requirements set by RMS, such as artificial life and complexity theory, are described. Finally, the multiagent based control solution is described as the underlying infrastructure to support all future development in EPS, using concepts such as emergence and self-organisation

Worker-robot cooperation and integration into the manufacturing workcell via the holonic control architecture

Cooperative manufacturing is a new field of research, which addresses new challenges beyond the physical safety of the worker. Those new challenges appear due to the need to connect the worker and the cobot from the informatics point of view in one cooperative workcell. This requires developing an appropriate manufacturing control system, which fits the nature of both the worker and the cobot. Furthermore, the manufacturing control system must be able to understand the production variations, to guide the cooperation between worker and the cobot and adapt with the production variations.Die kooperative Fertigung ist ein neues Forschungsgebiet, das sich neuen Herausforderungen stellt. Diese neuen Herausforderungen ergeben sich aus der Notwendigkeit, den Arbeiter und den Cobot aus der Sicht der Informatik in einem kooperativen Arbeitsplatz zu verbinden. Dies erfordert die Entwicklung eines geeigneten Produktionskontrollsystems, das sowohl der Natur des Arbeiters als auch der des Cobots entspricht. Darüber hinaus muss die Fertigungssteuerung in der Lage sein, die Produktionsschwankungen zu verstehen, um die Zusammenarbeit zwischen Arbeiter und Cobot zu steuern

Adaptive Smart Assembly Concept in e-Mobility: A Research Direction

Achieving high total volume, high variety batch size production can be quite expensive. In this vision paper, the methodology of achieving this at low costs and the available technologies in the field of e-mobility production are described. The focus of this research lies in high adaptive and cognitive aspects in the assembly. To match the high flexibility of a Flexible Manufacturing System while considering costs, a use case of an e-axle assembly is being done. E-axle is chosen due to the ongoing electrification of mobility as the demand of mass production is low. Hence, a solution for implementing a set of methodologies for an adaptive manufacturing system with respect to assembly and implementation efforts is shown. A LoPA (Level of Practical Application) matrix is presented of all the possible adaptive technologies that are feasible to implement in the e-assembly line

An agile and adaptive holonic architecture for manufacturing control

Tese de doutoramento. Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores. 2004. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Port

Design and implementation of a function block-based holonic control architecture for a new generation flexible manufacturing system

In this research work a control architecture which gives response to the requirements of new generation of flexible manufacturing systems in terms of flexibility, reconfigurability, robustness and autonomy is designed and implemented. To do so the main principles of the Holonic Manufacturing paradigm are applied using the IEC61499 function block (FB) technology. Unlike other similar research proposals, in this work FBs are not relegated to low-level control but are used to model manufacturing execution and control high-level control tasks. This is done with the objective of evaluating the viability of using FBs to develop holonic architectures in comparison to more established technologies like multi-agent systems. Moreover, the proposed control architecture also focuses on better integrating and exploiting the products’ information to enhance its flexibility and adaptability. For this STEP-NC (ISO14649) is used to model richer process plans which include manufacturing alternatives and could be easily integrated in the control itself

A service-oriented approach to embedded component-based manufacturing automation

This thesis is focused on the application of Component-Based (CB) technology to shop oor devices using a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Web Services (WS) for the purpose of realising future generation agile manufacturing systems. The environment of manufacturing enterprises is now characterised by frequently changing market demands, time-to-market pressure, continuously emerging new technologies and global competition. Under these circumstances, manufacturing systems need to be agile and automation systems need to support this agility. More speci cally, an open, exible automation environment with plug and play connectivity is needed. Technically, this requires the easy connectivity of hardware devices and software components from di erent vendors. Functionally, there is a need of interoperability and integration of control functions on di erent hierarchical levels ranging from eld level to various higher level applications such as process control and operations management services. [Continues.