Software for integrated manufacturing systems, part 2

Part 1 presented an overview of the unified approach to manufacturing software. The specific characteristics of the approach that allow it to realize the goals of reduced cost, increased reliability and increased flexibility are considered. Why the blending of a components view, distributed languages, generics and formal models is important, why each individual part of this approach is essential, and why each component will typically have each of these parts are examined. An example of a specification for a real material handling system is presented using the approach and compared with the standard interface specification given by the manufacturer. Use of the component in a distributed manufacturing system is then compared with use of the traditional specification with a more traditional approach to designing the system. An overview is also provided of the underlying mechanisms used for implementing distributed manufacturing systems using the unified software/hardware component approach

Software for integrated manufacturing systems, part 1

For several years, a broad, unified approach to programming manufacturing cells, factory floors, and other manufacturing systems has been developed. It is based on a blending of distributed Ada, software components, generics and formal models. Among other things the machines and devices which make up the components, and the entire manufacturing cell is viewed as an assembly of software components. The purpose of this project is to reduce cost, increase the reliability and increase the flexibility of manufacturing software. An overview is given of the approach and an experimental generic factory floor controller that was developed using the approach is described. The controller is generic in the sense that it can control any one of a large class of factory floors making an arbitrary mix of parts

Methods and strategies of object localization

An important property of an intelligent robot is to be able to determine the location of an object in 3-D space. A general object localization system structure is proposed, some important issues on localization discussed, and an overview given for current available object localization algorithms and systems. The algorithms reviewed are characterized by their feature extracting and matching strategies; the range finding methods; the types of locatable objects; and the mathematical formulating methods

Dynamic percolation theory for particle diffusion in a polymer network

Tracer-diffusion of small molecules through dense systems of chain polymers is studied within an athermal lattice model, where hard core interactions are taken into account by means of the site exclusion principle. An approximate mapping of this problem onto dynamic percolation theory is proposed. This method is shown to yield quantitative results for the tracer correlation factor of the molecules as a function of density and chain length provided the non-Poisson character of temporal renewals in the disorder configurations is properly taken into account

Phonon nanocapacitor for storage and lasing of terahertz lattice waves

We introduce a novel ultra-compact nanocapacitor of coherent phonons formed by high-finesse interference mirrors based on atomic-scale semiconductor metamaterials. Our molecular dynamics simulations show that the nanocapacitor stores THz monochromatic lattice waves, which can be used for phonon lasing - the emission of coherent phonons. Either one- or two-color phonon lasing can be realized depending on the geometry of the nanodevice. The two color regimes of the capacitor originates from the distinct transmittance dependance on the phonon wave packet incident angle for the two phonon polarizations at their respective resonances. Phonon nanocapacitor can be charged by cooling the sample equilibrated at room temperature or by the pump-probe technique. The nanocapacitor can be discharged by applying tunable reversible strain, resulting in the emission of coherent THz acoustic beams.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure

A common distributed language approach to software integration

An important objective in software integration is the development of techniques to allow programs written in different languages to function together. Several approaches are discussed toward achieving this objective and the Common Distributed Language Approach is presented as the approach of choice