3,923 research outputs found
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
Enhancing the Supply Chain Performance by Integrating Simulated and Physical Agents into Organizational Information Systems
As the business environment gets more complicated, organizations must be able to respond to the business changes and adjust themselves quickly to gain their competitive advantages. This study proposes an integrated agent system, called SPA, which coordinates simulated and physical agents to provide an efficient way for organizations to meet the challenges in managing supply chains. In the integrated framework, physical agents coordinate with inter-organizations\' physical agents to form workable business processes and detect the variations occurring in the outside world, whereas simulated agents model and analyze the what-if scenarios to support physical agents in making decisions. This study uses a supply chain that produces digital still cameras as an example to demonstrate how the SPA works. In this example, individual information systems of the involved companies equip with the SPA and the entire supply chain is modeled as a hierarchical object oriented Petri nets. The SPA here applies the modified AGNES data clustering technique and the moving average approach to help each firm generalize customers\' past demand patterns and forecast their future demands. The amplitude of forecasting errors caused by bullwhip effects is used as a metric to evaluate the degree that the SPA affects the supply chain performance. The experimental results show that the SPA benefits the entire supply chain by reducing the bullwhip effects and forecasting errors in a dynamic environment.Supply Chain Performance Enhancement; Bullwhip Effects; Simulated Agents; Physical Agents; Dynamic Customer Demand Pattern Discovery
A review of information flow diagrammatic models for product-service systems
A product-service system (PSS) is a combination of products and services to
create value for both customers and manufacturers. Modelling a PSS based on
function orientation offers a useful way to distinguish system inputs and
outputs with regards to how data are consumed and information is used, i.e.
information flow. This article presents a review of diagrammatic information
flow tools, which are designed to describe a system through its functions. The
origin, concept and applications of these tools are investigated, followed by an
analysis of information flow modelling with regards to key PSS properties. A
case study of selection laser melting technology implemented as PSS will then be
used to show the application of information flow modelling for PSS design. A
discussion based on the usefulness of the tools in modelling the key elements of
PSS and possible future research directions are also presented
Engineering framework for service-oriented automation systems
Tese de doutoramento. Engenharia Informática. Universidade do Porto. Faculdade de Engenharia. 201
DETC2008-49170 DYNAMIC MODEL OF PROCESS PLANNING FOR TOP-DOWN COLLABORATIVE ASSEMBLY DESIGN
ABSTRACT The design process of top-down collaborative assembly design is high parallel. There are complex task relationships not only in a task group but also among different task groups, which we call them as inside and outside relationships. A dynamic model of process planning based on hierarchical object-oriented Petri-net (HOOPN) is constructed for top-down collaborative assembly design. The dynamic model represents the outside and inside task relationships including parallel, sequential and coupling relationships. Based on the dynamic model, the dynamic supervising, analysis and decision-making for the states of the design process are implemented. The fuzzy overall evaluation model (FOEM) is utilized for risk evaluation of the design process. The task execution is influenced by local and global risk level from FOEM. Finally, the whole process planning is adjusted and controlled dynamically by the special risk decision-making mechanism
An assembly oriented design framework for product structure engineering and assembly sequence planning
The paper describes a novel framework for an assembly-oriented design (AOD) approach as a new functional product lifecycle management (PLM) strategy, by considering product design and assembly sequence planning phases concurrently. Integration issues of product life cycle into the product development process have received much attention over the last two decades, especially at the detailed design stage. The main objective of the research is to define assembly sequence into preliminary design stages by introducing and applying assembly process knowledge in order to provide an assembly context knowledge to support life-oriented product development process, particularly for product structuring. The proposed framework highlights a novel algorithm based on a mathematical model integrating boundary conditions related to DFA rules, engineering decisions for assembly sequence and the product structure definition. This framework has been implemented in a new system called PEGASUS considered as an AOD module for a PLM system. A case study of applying the framework to a catalytic-converter and diesel particulate filter sub-system, belonging to an exhaust system from an industrial automotive supplier, is introduced to illustrate the efficiency of the proposed AOD methodology
Component-based records: a novel method to record transaction design work
The growing pressures from global competitive markets signal the inevitable challenge for companies to
rapidly design and develop new successful products. To continually improve design quality and efficiency,
companies must consider how to speed design processes, minimise human-errors, avoid unnecessary
iterations, and sustain knowledge embedded in the design process. All of these issues strongly
concern one topic: how to make and exploit records of design activities. Using process modelling ideas,
this paper introduces a new method called component-based records, in place of traditional design
reports. The proposed method records transaction elements of the actual design processes undertaken
in a design episode, which aims to continually improve design quality and efficiency, reduce designers’
workload for routine tasks, and sustain competitiveness of companies
Industrial agents in the era of service-oriented architectures and cloudbased industrial infrastructures
The umbrella paradigm underpinning novel collaborative industrial systems is to consider the set of
intelligent system units as a conglomerate of distributed, autonomous, intelligent, proactive, fault-tolerant,
and reusable units, which operate as a set of cooperating entities (Colombo and Karnouskos,
2009). These entities are forming an evolvable infrastructure, entering and/or going out (plug-in/plugout)
in an asynchronous manner. Moreover, these entities, having each of them their own functionalities,
data, and associated information are now connected and able to interact. They are capable of
working in a proactive manner, initiating collaborative actions and dynamically interacting with each
other in order to achieve both local and global objectives.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Middleware control systems design and analysis using message interpreted Petri Nets (MIPN)
Many distributed frameworks use a message-oriented middleware to interchange information among several independent distributed modules. Those modules make up complex systems implementing basic actions and reporting events about their state. This paper introduces the Message Interpreted Petri Net (MIPN) model to design, analyze, and execute the central control of these middleware systems. The MIPN is a new Petri net extension that adds message-based high-level information communications and hierarchic capabilities. It also contributes to the definition and study of new properties such as terminability for the hierarchy-wide analysis of a system. Special attention is given to the analyzability of the model. Useful relations between the individual properties of each MIPN and the global properties of a hierarchic MIPNs system are extracted through a mathematical analysis of the model. The goal is to analyze each net separately and then build up the properties of the whole system. This results in a great aid for the programmer and optimizes the development process. This paper also shows the actual integration of this new MIPN model in different robot control frameworks to design, analyze, execute, monitor, log, and debug tasks in such heterogeneous systems. Finally, some applications created with this framework in the fields of robotics, autonomous vehicles, and logistics are also presentedMinisterio de Ciencia e InnovaciĂłn | Ref. EXP00139978CER-2021100
ACHIEVING AUTONOMIC SERVICE ORIENTED ARCHITECTURE USING CASE BASED REASONING
Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) enables composition of large and complex
computational units out of the available atomic services. However, implementation of
SOA, for its dynamic nature, could bring about challenges in terms of service
discovery, service interaction, service composition, robustness, etc. In the near future,
SOA will often need to dynamically re-configuring and re-organizing its topologies of
interactions between the web services because of some unpredictable events, such as
crashes or network problems, which will cause service unavailability. Complexity and
dynamism of the current and future global network system require service architecture
that is capable of autonomously changing its structure and functionality to meet
dynamic changes in the requirements and environment with little human intervention.
This then needs to motivate the research described throughout this thesis.
In this thesis, the idea of introducing autonomy and adapting case-based reasoning
into SOA in order to extend the intelligence and capability of SOA is contributed and
elaborated. It is conducted by proposing architecture of an autonomic SOA
framework based on case-based reasoning and the architectural considerations of
autonomic computing paradigm. It is then followed by developing and analyzing
formal models of the proposed architecture using Petri Net. The framework is also
tested and analyzed through case studies, simulation, and prototype development. The
case studies show feasibility to employing case-based reasoning and autonomic
computing into SOA domain and the simulation results show believability that it
would increase the intelligence, capability, usability and robustness of SOA. It was
shown that SOA can be improved to cope with dynamic environment and services
unavailability by incorporating case-based reasoning and autonomic computing
paradigm to monitor and analyze events and service requests, then to plan and execute
the appropriate actions using the knowledge stored in knowledge database
- …