Emanuele Carpanzano

An approach to design and develop reconfigurable control software for highly automated production systems

The current work outlines a comprehensive development approach to support the realisation of innovative reconfigurable factory control software from the preliminary design to its deployment in the shop floor. The proposed method consists of three major steps: control conceptual design, application development and evaluation of solution robustness. The innovation features of the proposed control development approach rely upon the integration of reconfiguration policies in the distributed automation infrastructures based on standard IEC 61499. The benefits of the proposed approach have been assessed with regard to an industrial application dealing with the manufacturing of personalised footwear goods.

Research Issues on Customer-Oriented and Eco-friendly Networks for Healthy Fashionable Goods

Needs and expectations of specific target groups - such as elderly, obese, disabled, or diabetic persons- are arising as challenging opportunities for European companies which are asked to supply small series of functional and fashionable goods of high quality, affordable price and eco-compatible. In order to design, develop, produce and distribute such products, a new framework and related components of collaborative networking need to be developed, enabling the product to stay as long as digital to produce on-demand. Research is necessary in many topics like: a) consumer integrated collaborative eco-oriented design, b) radical renewal by the adoption of Rapid Manufacturing technologies; and c) the overall integration and co-ordination of business processes and information exchange by a set of new (web)services for network design and ad-hoc (re-)configuration, for real-time planning, forecasting and replenishment, d) tracking and tracing of ecology and quality.

Design and implementation of a distributed part-routing algorithm for reconfigurable transportation systems

The reconfigurability feature represents an instrumental characteristic for manufacturing systems that are required to frequently adapt the architecture and functionalities to match evolving production environment where changes of product variants and demand volumes frequently occur. Transportation systems embrace a major industrial application of the reconfiguration concept. Reconfigurable transportation systems (RTSs) are conceived as multiple independent modules to implement alternative inbound logistic systems’ configurations. Together with mechatronic interfaces and distributed control solutions, the full exploitation of reconfigurability strategies for transportation systems relies upon flexible production management policies. This enables the dynamic computation of part routings in RTSs after every reconfiguration and change in the way transportation modules are exploited. The current work proposes an innovative agent-based algorithm that combines global and local optimisation criteria to manage the part flow in RTS. The proposed approach is designed as fully distributed across transportation modules; based on current RTS’ topology and status, it ensures the autonomy in selecting routing decisions while embracing global and local evolving optimisation strategies. The benefits of the approach have been investigated with reference to a set of realistic RTS topologies exhibiting different routing options, in order to assess the algorithm under different part-routing conditions.

Minimum Energy Control of Redundant Linear Manipulators

In redundant manipulation systems, the end-effector path does not completely determine the trajectories of all the individual degrees of freedom (dof) and the additional dofs can be used to enhance the performance in some sense. The paper deals with utilizing the redundancy to minimize energy consumption. A full linear electromechanical model is used, and the exact energy consumption is calculated. The optimization includes also displacement limits via penalty functions that are included in the cost function. The optimal trajectory is feasible in the sense that it can be obtained by a finite input voltage and all the velocities are continuous. The solution is based on projections that separate the system and the input into two parts. One that is completely determined by the end-effector path and the other that is free for optimization. The important and delicate issue of boundary conditions is resolved accordingly. Simulation results show that redundancy, even with limited joint motion, can lead to a considerable reduction in energy consumption.

Closed-loop production and automation scheduling in RMSs

Highly reconfigurable and agile production systems are selected to operate in production contexts often characterized by changes of the production requirements or changes of the part family demand. The operational level for such system architecture is expected to manage the short term production planning while guaranteeing the automation layer enables physical devices to exploit logic control tasks within the specific time buckets. The proposed work outlines an integrated approach supporting the operational level for RMSs in which the scheduling of production jobs and the scheduling of corresponding automation tasks are dynamically coupled. Connections with consolidated constraint-based representation and solving techniques are also discussed. The integrated scheduling approach has been validated with reference to a Finishing Robotic Cell (FRC) operating in a pilot assembly line.

Automated formal verification for flexible manufacturing systems

We present an effective approach to perform formal verification of properties of interest of production systems whose behavior is modeled through Stateflow diagrams. The approach hinges on a semantics of Stateflow diagrams given in terms of formulae of a metric temporal logic. The semantics has been implemented in a fully automated tool through which users can define a wide range of properties of interest and then check if they hold for the system. We illustrate the approach and the use of the tool through a realistic case study. The verification technique allowed us to uncover a previously undetected error in the design of the system.

Closed-loop production and automation schedule execution in RMSs under uncertain environmental conditions

Highly automated production systems are conceived to efficiently handle evolving production requirements. This concerns any level of the system from the configuration and control to the management of production. The proposed work deals with the development of an innovative platform jointly managing the production scheduling level and the automation level. The major advantage coming from the platform is the capacity of generating scheduling plans which are executed at automation level and concurrently monitored over time so that any production anomaly or system misbehavior can be dynamically interpreted and adapted by regenerating online a new schedule. The paper describes the current release of our closed loop architecture that integrated both control and automation parts.

Connecting Humans to the Loop of Digitized Factories’ Automation Systems

Emerging factory digitization, along with the increased automation levels it promotes, represents a unique opportunity that manufacturing enterprises must seize. By distributing once centralized decision-making through an ecosystem of smart factory objects, enterprises will be able to increase their productivity, responsiveness and quality levels. However, for continued effective management, humans must adapt to production systems whose behavior is defined by the interactions that take place between these smart objects and the overall automation layers and automatic control functions. These interactions can occur in different ways across many levels of abstraction and complexity, and across many timescales. As a result, it is extremely hard for humans to preserve reliable mental models and this raises the risk of the out-of-the-loop condition. This paper proposes a human-centered automation framework for improved workers’ well-being, safety and psychological health. Particularly, the dynamic real time interactions among closed loop control functions and human workers are addressed so as to properly include humans in the feedback loops. Experimental cases of the proposed framework application are presented in the white-goods and in the furniture sectors.

Advances in customer-oriented manufacturing and value chain management

Recent years have stressed the need of re-inventing the manufacturing business concepts in order to achieve new competitive advantages. Low-cost countries are making a big effort to emerge, proposing products to mass market which force companies to dramatically change the way they perform their business. To differentiate the offer, enterprises need to address individual customer expectations by putting in place innovative strategies to target specific market niches, tackling needs directly from the customer, increasing the level of service and reducing response times.

Minimum Energy Control of Redundant Cartesian Manipulators

In redundant manipulation systems the end-effector path does not completely determine the trajectories of all the individual degrees of freedom (dof). The redundancy is used in this paper to minimize energy consumption. A full electromechanical model is used, and the invested energy is calculated explicitly. The optimization includes also displacement limits via penalty functions that are included in the cost function. The solution is based on separating the system and the input into two parts. One that is completely determined by the end-effector path and the other that is driven by it, yet free for optimization. The boundary conditions are resolved in a similar manner, where the physical values are translated to the scaled down system by using a specific projection. Simulation results show that even with limited joint motion, the redundancy can lead to a considerable saving in energy.Copyright