13,157 research outputs found
Realising the open virtual commissioning of modular automation systems
To address the challenges in the automotive industry posed by the need to rapidly manufacture more
product variants, and the resultant need for more adaptable production systems, radical changes are
now required in the way in which such systems are developed and implemented. In this context, two
enabling approaches for achieving more agile manufacturing, namely modular automation systems
and virtual commissioning, are briefly reviewed in this contribution. Ongoing research conducted at
Loughborough University which aims to provide a modular approach to automation systems design
coupled with a virtual engineering toolset for the (re)configuration of such manufacturing
automation systems is reported. The problems faced in the virtual commissioning of modular
automation systems are outlined. AutomationML - an emerging neutral data format which has
potential to address integration problems is discussed. The paper proposes and illustrates a
collaborative framework in which AutomationML is adopted for the data exchange and data
representation of related models to enable efficient open virtual prototype construction and virtual
commissioning of modular automation systems. A case study is provided to show how to create the
data model based on AutomationML for describing a modular automation system
Transdisciplinarity seen through Information, Communication, Computation, (Inter-)Action and Cognition
Similar to oil that acted as a basic raw material and key driving force of
industrial society, information acts as a raw material and principal mover of
knowledge society in the knowledge production, propagation and application. New
developments in information processing and information communication
technologies allow increasingly complex and accurate descriptions,
representations and models, which are often multi-parameter, multi-perspective,
multi-level and multidimensional. This leads to the necessity of collaborative
work between different domains with corresponding specialist competences,
sciences and research traditions. We present several major transdisciplinary
unification projects for information and knowledge, which proceed on the
descriptive, logical and the level of generative mechanisms. Parallel process
of boundary crossing and transdisciplinary activity is going on in the applied
domains. Technological artifacts are becoming increasingly complex and their
design is strongly user-centered, which brings in not only the function and
various technological qualities but also other aspects including esthetic, user
experience, ethics and sustainability with social and environmental dimensions.
When integrating knowledge from a variety of fields, with contributions from
different groups of stakeholders, numerous challenges are met in establishing
common view and common course of action. In this context, information is our
environment, and informational ecology determines both epistemology and spaces
for action. We present some insights into the current state of the art of
transdisciplinary theory and practice of information studies and informatics.
We depict different facets of transdisciplinarity as we see it from our
different research fields that include information studies, computability,
human-computer interaction, multi-operating-systems environments and
philosophy.Comment: Chapter in a forthcoming book: Information Studies and the Quest for
Transdisciplinarity - Forthcoming book in World Scientific. Mark Burgin and
Wolfgang Hofkirchner, Editor
Developing a distributed electronic health-record store for India
The DIGHT project is addressing the problem of building a scalable and highly available information store for the Electronic Health Records (EHRs) of the over one billion citizens of India
SHPbench – a smart hybrid prototyping based environment for early testing, verification and (user based) validation of advanced driver assistant systems of cars
Statistical analysis show that more than 90 percent of all car accidents result from human mistakes. Advanced Driver Assistant Systems (ADAS) are intended to support and assist the car driver, and therefore contribute significantly to the reduction of accidents. ADAS become more and more complex and demanding regarding hard- and software fulfilling the requirements applied onto assistant systems nowadays and in the future. They have to be considered as multi-functional multi-domain mechatronic systems. Smart Hybrid Prototyping (SHP) is a by now proven approach for handling ADAS’ demands during and to the development process, specifically for early integrated component and system testing, its verification and validation with the focus on the interaction with the driver can only be reasonably and economically met by utilizing the SHP technology. For those mentioned purposes the SHPbench, an integrated development and validation environment, has been recently developed. The SHPbench's architecture and specification is presented and evaluated by applying a representative use case of an ADAS development process. This paper documents the use case setup, process steps and test results
VANET Applications: Hot Use Cases
Current challenges of car manufacturers are to make roads safe, to achieve
free flowing traffic with few congestions, and to reduce pollution by an
effective fuel use. To reach these goals, many improvements are performed
in-car, but more and more approaches rely on connected cars with communication
capabilities between cars, with an infrastructure, or with IoT devices.
Monitoring and coordinating vehicles allow then to compute intelligent ways of
transportation. Connected cars have introduced a new way of thinking cars - not
only as a mean for a driver to go from A to B, but as smart cars - a user
extension like the smartphone today. In this report, we introduce concepts and
specific vocabulary in order to classify current innovations or ideas on the
emerging topic of smart car. We present a graphical categorization showing this
evolution in function of the societal evolution. Different perspectives are
adopted: a vehicle-centric view, a vehicle-network view, and a user-centric
view; described by simple and complex use-cases and illustrated by a list of
emerging and current projects from the academic and industrial worlds. We
identified an empty space in innovation between the user and his car:
paradoxically even if they are both in interaction, they are separated through
different application uses. Future challenge is to interlace social concerns of
the user within an intelligent and efficient driving
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