A Generic Method for Modelling Systems of Systems and its Applicability to the Field of Factory Automation

To solve the problems brought by new challenges such as customized production and shortened production life cycle, numerous new technologies have been introduced to the area of factory automation. The integration of the new technologies to manufacturing systems has enhanced the complexity of systems and lead to a new type of system – system of systems (SoS), whose properties are significantly different from traditional complex systems. System modelling is an effective approach for analysis, design and maintenance of a system. It is essential for system engineering for reducing cost to a noticeable extent compared to facilitating construction. In order to capture the different properties possessed by SoS, a generic SoS modelling method is introduced based on computation of SoS characteristics and description of the interface activities between component systems. For evaluating the applicability of the generic modelling method in the domain of factory automation, it is first applied to testbed, which is a conveyor-based pallet transferring system for assembling electronic devices located in FAST lab. The results present that the generic method is capable to describe the whole production process and to compute characteristics of a manufacturing system, which is vital in design and maintenance phases of system engineering. The research is extended to the use case of Pultrusion Process for manufacturing composite material in ACCIONA R&D centre located in Madrid, Spain, in which material from creel racks are passing through a certain sequence until desired productions are finalized. The system could exemplify SoS from the horizon of heterogeneity, since a social system (human operators) is integrated to the large-scale technical systems. The system was analyzed according to the generic method based on which the whole production process can be described. The results of the thesis show 1) a generic SoS modelling method for the domain of factory automation is introduced; 2) the applicability of the generic method to a system with distributed control where every module can be considered as a subsystem; and 3) the applicability of the generic method to a complex manufacturing system. /Kir1

Obligations as constrainers, descriptors and linkers of open system of systems

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