A Generic Multi-Layer Architecture Based on ROS-JADE Integration for Autonomous Transport Vehicles

The design and operation of manufacturing systems is evolving to adapt to different challenges. One of the most important is the reconfiguration of the manufacturing process in response to context changes (e.g., faulty equipment or urgent orders, among others). In this sense, the Autonomous Transport Vehicle (ATV) plays a key role in building more flexible and decentralized manufacturing systems. Nowadays, robotic frameworks (RFs) are used for developing robotic systems such as ATVs, but they focus on the control of the robotic system itself. However, social abilities are required for performing intelligent interaction (peer-to-peer negotiation and decision-making) among the different and heterogeneous Cyber Physical Production Systems (such as machines, transport systems and other equipment present in the factory) to achieve manufacturing reconfiguration. This work contributes a generic multi-layer architecture that integrates a RF with a Multi-Agent System (MAS) to provide social abilities to ATVs. This architecture has been implemented on ROS and JADE, the most widespread RF and MAS framework, respectively. We believe this to be the first work that addresses the intelligent interaction of transportation systems for flexible manufacturing environments in a holistic form.This work was financed by MINECO/FEDER, UE (grant number DPI2015-68602-R) and by UPV/EHU (grant number PPG17/56)

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

A proposal to introduce digitalization technologies within the automation learning process

Although the digital factory (DF) concept has raised high expectations since its inception, it is still missing industrial impact. One of the problems attributed to this issue is the lack of education curricula for enhancing the related digital competences of the future professionals. Higher education institutions, as major stakeholders in education, should introduce the new technologies for DF in practical courses. However, it is difficult to deal with the complexity of those technologies in a time-limited environment such us a bachelor or a master course. Instead of providing complete knowledge, this paper proposes to focus on the methodological aspects that allow students to acquire the skills needed to handle those technologies. Specifically, this paper illustrates this approach for teaching virtual commissioning (VC) within the automation learning process. The goal is to show the students how to use powerful industrial tools for performing VC through a set of methodological steps that help students manage the complexity of the VC process regardless of the specific tools used for it.This work was financed by Erasmus+, UE (grant number 2018-1-FR01-KA203-048175) and by GV/EJ (grant numbers IT1324-19 and KK-2019-00095

A Component-Based Approach for Securing Indoor Home Care Applications

eHealth systems have adopted recent advances on sensing technologies together with advances in information and communication technologies (ICT) in order to provide people-centered services that improve the quality of life of an increasingly elderly population. As these eHealth services are founded on the acquisition and processing of sensitive data (e.g., personal details, diagnosis, treatments and medical history), any security threat would damage the public's confidence in them. This paper proposes a solution for the design and runtime management of indoor eHealth applications with security requirements. The proposal allows applications definition customized to patient particularities, including the early detection of health deterioration and suitable reaction (events) as well as security needs. At runtime, security support is twofold. A secured component-based platform supervises applications execution and provides events management, whilst the security of the communications among application components is also guaranteed. Additionally, the proposed event management scheme adopts the fog computing paradigm to enable local event related data storage and processing, thus saving communication bandwidth when communicating with the cloud. As a proof of concept, this proposal has been validated through the monitoring of the health status in diabetic patients at a nursing home.This work was financed under project DPI2015-68602-R (MINECO/FEDER, UE), UPV/EHU under project PPG17/56 and GV/EJ under recognized research group IT914-16

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

Modu-kommutazioaren bidezko sistemak ikuskatu eta kontrolatzeko arkitektura baten diseinua

In the last decades, the technological advances have led experts in the fields of control engineering and software engineering to work jointly in the area of Hybrid Systems . It is well known the difficulty for control them, how usually they do not perform as required if a unique controller is designed for all modes . Related with how to control these systems and the viability of their industrial implementation, this work presents a supervision and control architecture for switched mode systems. It is based on the use of clifferent control algorithms designecl specifically for clifferent modes of the system operation anda decision logic that orchestrates the switch ing among them.Although the architecture can be extended with other improvement mechanisms , the focus here is on its implementation in PLC (Programmable Logical Controller), the most common control technology used in industrial applications at process level, and being compliant to standards, particulary the IEC 61131-3.; Azken urteetako teknologia-aurrerakuntzak, Sistema Hibridoen arloan e lkarlanean bildu ditu Kontrol lngeniaritzaren eta Software Ingeniaritzaren arloetako adituak. Sistema hauen kontrolak dakarren zailtasuna ezaguna da. Sarritan kontrolagailu bakar batekin ezin izaren dira lan-baldintza guztietako eskakizunak bete.Sistema hauek kontrolatzeko eta industrian inplementatzeko bideragarritasunaren ikuspegitik egindako Jan honetan, sistema ikuskatu eta kontrolat uko duen arkitektura bat proposatuko da. Oinarrian, modu bakoitzeko kontrolagailu propioak eta euren arteko kommutazioa bideratuko duen logika baten diseinuan datza. Kontrol lngeniaritzaren ikuspegitik haratago, industria-aplikazio gehienetan prozesu mailako kontro l-teknologiarik erab iliena PLC-a (Programmab le Logical Controller) denez, lEC 6 113 1-3 programaziorako estandarrarekin bat datorren inplementazioa proposatuko da

Industri automatizazioan kontrol-programak berrerabiltzeko bidean

Gaur egungo industri aplikazioek sistema konplexuagoak, seguruagoak eta fidagarriagoak behar dituzte, bai eta malgutasun eta berrerabilgarritasun handiagokoak ere. Hori dela-eta, lehentasuna hartu dute garapen-ingurune ezberdinen integrazioak eta aldez aurretik beste aplikazioetarako sortutako kontrol-programen kodearen errerabilgarritasunak. Fabrikatzaileek sistemak programatzeko sistemetan IEC 61131-3 estandarrari jarraitzean datza helburu hauek lortzeko giltzarria. Honela, automatizazio-proiektuen egitura eta programatzeko lengoaiak batuz, kodea berriz erabiltzea lor daiteke. Benetako berrerabilerak, estandarrak definitzen dituen alderdiez gain, ingurune batetik beste batera transferitzeko mekanismoak eskatzen ditu. Lan honetaz diharduen PLCopen erakundeak XML interfaze bat definitu du. Interfaze hau daukaten programazio-inguruneetan IEC 61131-3 jarraituz gero, zuzenean lortzen dalkarreragina eta, ondorioz, kodea berrerabiltzea ere. Lan honetan gehiago eskaintzen duen bidea aurkezten da, edozein programazio-inguruneren elkarreragin lortzeko metodologia aurkezten baita, erabiltzaileak honela kontrol programen berrerabilera benetan aukeran izan dezan

Quality of Service Aware Orchestration for Cloud-Edge Continuum Applications

The fast growth in the amount of connected devices with computing capabilities in the past years has enabled the emergence of a new computing layer at the Edge. Despite being resource-constrained if compared with cloud servers, they offer lower latencies than those achievable by Cloud computing. The combination of both Cloud and Edge computing paradigms can provide a suitable infrastructure for complex applications’ quality of service requirements that cannot easily be achieved with either of these paradigms alone. These requirements can be very different for each application, from achieving time sensitivity or assuring data privacy to storing and processing large amounts of data. Therefore, orchestrating these applications in the Cloud–Edge computing raises new challenges that need to be solved in order to fully take advantage of this layered infrastructure. This paper proposes an architecture that enables the dynamic orchestration of applications in the Cloud–Edge continuum. It focuses on the application’s quality of service by providing the scheduler with input that is commonly used by modern scheduling algorithms. The architecture uses a distributed scheduling approach that can be customized in a per-application basis, which ensures that it can scale properly even in setups with high number of nodes and complex scheduling algorithms. This architecture has been implemented on top of Kubernetes and evaluated in order to asses its viability to enable more complex scheduling algorithms that take into account the quality of service of applications.This work has been financially supported by the European Commission through the ELASTIC project (H2020 grant agreement 825473), by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (project RTI2018-096116-B-I00 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE)), and by the Basque Government through the Qualyfamm project (Elkartek KK-2020/00042). It has also been financed by the Basque Government under Grant IT1324-19