Agent-based middleware architecture for reconfigurable manufacturing systems

Modern manufacturing systems are expected to be flexible and efficient in order to cope with challenging market demands. Thus, they must be flexible enough as to meet changing requirements such as changes in production, energy efficiency, performance optimization, fault tolerance to process or controller faults, among others. Demanding requirements can be defined as a set of quality of service (QoS) requirements to be met. This paper proposes a generic and customizable multi-agent architecture that, making use of distributed agents, monitors QoS, triggering, if needed, a reconfiguration of the control system to recover QoS. As a proof of concept, the architecture has been implemented to provide availability of the control system understood as service continuity. The prototype has been tested in a case study consisting of an assembly cell where assessment of the approach has been conducted.This work was financed by the MINECO/FEDER under project DPI2015-68602-R

Model-Driven Design and Development of Flexible Automated Production Control Configurations for Industry 4.0

The continuous changes of the market and customer demands have forced modern automation systems to provide stricter Quality of service (QoS) requirements. This work is centered in automation production system flexibility, understood as the ability to shift from one controller configuration to a different one, in the most quick and cost-effective way, without disrupting its normal operation. In the manufacturing field, this allows to deal with non-functional requirements such as assuring control system availability or workload balancing, even in the case of failure of a machine, components, network or controllers. Concretely, this work focuses on flexible applications at production level, using Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) as primary controllers. The reconfiguration of the control system is not always possible as it depends on the process state. Thus, an analysis of the system state is necessary to make a decision. In this sense, architectures based on industrial Multi Agent Systems (MAS) have been used to provide this support at runtime. Additionally, the introduction of these mechanisms makes the design and the implementation of the control system more complex. This work aims at supporting the design and development of such flexible automation production systems, through the proposed model-based framework. The framework consists of a set of tools that, based on models, automate the generation of control code extensions that add flexibility to the automation production system, according to industry 4.0 paradigm.This work was financed by MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE (grant number RTI2018-096116-B-I00) and by GV/EJ (grant number IT1324-19)

Flexibility Support for Homecare Applications Based on Models and Multi-Agent Technology

In developed countries, public health systems are under pressure due to the increasing percentage of population over 65. In this context, homecare based on ambient intelligence technology seems to be a suitable solution to allow elderly people to continue to enjoy the comforts of home and help optimize medical resources. Thus, current technological developments make it possible to build complex homecare applications that demand, among others, flexibility mechanisms for being able to evolve as context does (adaptability), as well as avoiding service disruptions in the case of node failure (availability). The solution proposed in this paper copes with these flexibility requirements through the whole life-cycle of the target applications: from design phase to runtime. The proposed domain modeling approach allows medical staff to design customized applications, taking into account the adaptability needs. It also guides software developers during system implementation. The application execution is managed by a multi-agent based middleware, making it possible to meet adaptation requirements, assuring at the same time the availability of the system even for stateful applications.This work was financed in part by the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) under project UFI 11/28, by the Regional Government of the Basque Country under Project IT719-13, and by the MCYT&FEDER under project DPI 2012-37806-C02-01

A Customizable Architecture for Application-Centric Management of Context-Aware Applications

[EN] Context-aware applications present common requirements (e.g., heterogeneity, scalability, adaptability, availability) in a variety of domains (e.g., healthcare, natural disaster prevention, smart factories). Besides, they do also present domain specific requirements, among which the application concept itself is included. Therefore, a platform in charge of managing their execution must be generic enough to cover common requirements, but it must also be adaptable enough to consider the domain aspects to meet the demands at application-level. Several approaches in the literature tackle some of these demands, but not all of them, and without considering the applications concept and the customization demands in different domains. This work proposes a generic and customizable management architecture that covers both types of requirements based on multi-agent technology and model-driven development. Multi-agent technology is used to enable the distributed intelligence needed to address many common requirements, whereas model-driven development allows to address domain specific particularities. On top of that, a customization methodology to develop specific platforms from this generic architecture is also presented. This methodology is assessed by means of a case study in the domain of eHealthCare. Finally, the performance of MAS-RECON is compared with the most popular tool for the orchestration of containerized applications.This work was supported in part by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacion y Universidades (MCIU)/Agencia Estatal de Investigacion (AEI)/Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER), Union Europea (UE), under Grant RTI2018-096116-B-I00; and in part by the Gobierno Vasco (GV)/Eusko Jaurlaritza (EJ) under Grant IT1324-19

MAS-RECON: plataforma de gestión de aplicaciones distribuidas, adaptables y sensibles al contexto.

159 p.En esta Tesis Doctoral se presenta MAS-RECON, una plataforma genérica, personalizable y extensible para la gestión del ciclo de ejecución de aplicaciones sensibles al contexto, que incluye desde el registro de sus elementos hasta su puesta en marcha y la gestión de su ejecución.MAS-RECON dispone de un núcleo genérico que cubre las necesidades operacionales (arranque, parada, operación normal y gestión del estado del sistema) y de flexibilidad (auto-adaptabilidad conducida por la propia aplicación y disponibilidad en base a réplicas) de las aplicaciones sensibles al contexto de cualquier campo. MAS-RECON también contempla la variabilidad del dominio, ya que se ha diseñado para que pueda ser personalizable e incluso extensible a domino.MAS-RECON se basa en dos tecnologías. La tecnología multi-agente permite la implementación de inteligencia distribuida con supervisión centralizada. Así, se puede distribuir la toma de decisiones a entidades del dominio al mismo tiempo que se asegura un correcto estado global del sistema. De hecho, MAS-RECON da un paso más que otras plataformas, centrando su gestión de la ejecución en las propias aplicaciones y no en sus componentes. Esto es posible gracias a la tecnología de meta-modelado que permite incluir el concepto de aplicación en los mecanismos de gestión. De hecho, a pesar de que el concepto de aplicación es específico de cada ámbito, MAS-RECON proporciona la definición y gestión genérica del estado global del sistema gracias a la definición de meta-modelos de dominio

Ikastorratza. e-Revista de didáctica

Resumen en español y en euskeraResumen basado en el de la publicaciónEn disciplinas técnicas y científicas la realización de experimentos con plantas reales es fundamental para consolidar los conceptos adquiridos en las aulas teóricas. Sin embargo, debido a diferentes razones los laboratorios reales no siempre están disponibles, lo cual impone restricciones en el aprendizaje. Afortunadamente, las nuevas tecnologías basadas en Internet, pueden ser utilizadas para mejorar la accesibilidad a los experimentos. Se muestran algunas de las opciones disponibles más utilizadas dentro del ámbito de la Ingeniería de Control con la intención de que estas prácticas puedan irse extendiendo a otras áreas del conocimiento.ES