Harm Smit

Service-oriented paradigms in industrial automation

This paper outlines opportunities and challenges in the development of next-generation embedded devices, applications, and services, resulting from their increasing intelligence - it plots envisioned future directions for intelligent device networking based on service-oriented high-level protocols, in particular as regards the industrial automation sector - and outlines the approach adopted by the Service Infrastructure for Real-Time Embedded Networked Applications project, as well as the business advantages this approach is expected to provide.

Service-oriented architectures for devices - the SIRENA view

This paper outlines the perspectives opened by the application of the service-orientation paradigm for realizing high-level communications between next-generation, increasingly intelligent embedded devices - it indicates how this approach can benefit the manufacturing industry - it describes the approach adopted by the SIRENA project, as well as the business advantages it is expected to provide - and outlines early experimental results.

Orchestration of service-oriented manufacturing processes

This paper outlines the perspectives opened by the application of the service-orientation paradigm for realizing high-level communications between next-generation, increasingly intelligent embedded devices - it indicates how this approach can benefit the manufacturing industry - and outlines the issues and approaches for cohesively coordinating manufacturing services at various levels of the manufacturing device hierarchy

Service-oriented architectures for collaborative automation

This paper describes a vision for utilising service-oriented architectures (SOA) to support the lifecycle needs of automation systems in the context of agile manufacturing, i.e., engineering easily configurable manufacturing systems composed of standard components that may be remotely supported by geographically distributed engineering partners to suit changing and unpredictable business needs. The paper briefly reviews the relevant state of the art in collaborative automation systems and considers the potential of SOA to support the practical implementation of such systems, with traditional product-oriented methods replaced by more service-oriented ways of working. As the SOA paradigm holds the promise of being applicable across the entire spectrum of manufacturing systems and devices, down to sensors and actuators, the paper further addresses issues involved in discovery and orchestration of device-level services and discusses the potential benefits of using semantic Web techniques for automating service selection, invocation and composition, so as to facilitate rapid reconfiguration. This discussion is supported by a practical example of device-level SOA.

Integration of Multi-Agent Systems and Service-Oriented Architecture for industrial automation

The highly dynamic environments imposed by reconfigurable manufacturing systems (RMS) present a challenge for achieving fully automated reconfiguration. Of special interest are the situations in which new modular equipment is added to the production lines or in which existing equipment fails, since this calls for human intervention and long production delays. By integrating the concept of service-oriented architecture (SOA) through Web services (WS) into the factory automation domain it is possible to abstract and encapsulate the functionality of the devices as services. These services can be used independently of the devicepsilas physical location and of their software/hardware platforms. Furthermore, by providing an intelligent control mechanism for these services it is possible to improve the systemspsila reconfigurability. This paper proposes the integration of WS and a multi-agent system (MAS) in order to build a control architecture suitable for automated reconfigurability. The architecture is presented together with an analysis of the requirements for its implementation.

SOA middleware and automation: Services, applications and architectures

The factory automation community is looking toward the devices profile for Web services (DPWS) set of Web service standards to provide a service orientated architecture (SOA) enablement of factory elements. This paper examines the issues surrounding the application and future development of DPWS on production line machines and their integration with distributed enterprise applications. Issues raised reflect the need for more development on defining a generic approach to Web Service architecture in automation and the ontologies that support it. The concept of an automation lifecycle is introduced to aid this development from a more holistic perspective.

Intelligent device networking in industrial automation

This paper outlines opportunities and challenges in the development of next-generation embedded devices, applications and services, due to their increasing intelligence - it plots envisioned future directions for intelligent device networking based on high-level protocols - and outlines the projected SIRENA framework for networking intelligent devices, in particular as regards the industrial automation sector

Service-oriented Architectures in Industrial Automation

The advent of the service-oriented architecture (SOA) paradigm is a major trend in the ICT industry at large. Based on open standards and protocols and enjoying broad-based industry adoption, it is set to revolutionize the computing and communications landscape in the years to come. Current literature abounds with articles on SOA - especially SOA implemented using Web services. However, SOA is much more than a buzz word. Being an enterprise-wide architectural style that promotes vendor neutrality, interoperability, and loose-coupling between service providers and consumers, it is rapidly becoming the de-facto foundation for enterprise architectures. Ever-increasing miniaturization allows driving intelligence down to the device level, thus favoring the adoption of the SOA paradigm in the embedded-device space, down to sensors and actuators. This will enable radically new device networking architectures and pave the way for application of a uniform communication paradigm down from the shop floor up to the top floor, thus breaking down current technological barriers. In turn, these evolutions hold the promise of greatly increasing the agility of future industrial enterprises. This tutorial exposes the foundations of the SOA paradigm in general and of its use in the device space in particular, explains how SOA for devices can be implemented using the Devices Profile for Web Services, and outlines the benefits it brings in the industrial sector, as illustrated by the ground breaking experience of the SIRENA (http://www.sirena-itea.org) project. It further plots some future directions and discusses the potential benefits of using advanced concepts like semantic Web services for automating service selection, invocation and composition, so as to facilitate rapid reconfiguration.