Juha Puttonen

Semantics-Based Composition of Factory Automation Processes Encapsulated by Web Services

This paper presents an approach to using semantic web services in managing production processes. In particular, the devices in the production systems considered expose web service interfaces through which they can then be controlled, while semantic web service descriptions formulated in web ontology language for services (OWL-S) make it possible to determine the conditions and effects of invoking the web services. The approach involves three web services that cooperate to achieve production goals using the domain web services. In particular, one of the three services maintains a semantic model of the current state of the system, while another uses the model to compose the domain web services so that they jointly achieve the desired goals. The semantic model of the system is automatically updated based on event notifications sent by the domain services.

A Semantic Web Services-based approach for production systems control

Recent research projects have experimented with controlling production system equipment through web service interfaces. However, orchestrating these web services to accomplish a complicated production task can be difficult because the states of the production equipment and the set of available web services may change. This paper proposes an approach in which the production equipment and their states are modelled with an ontology, and the semantic model is dynamically analyzed to determine which action should next be taken in the production process. Similarly, the available web services are described with semantic models, and the descriptions are retrieved dynamically to find the web services capable of performing the required actions. While Web Ontology Language, OWL, is used in describing equipment statuses, the OWL-S ontology, which is based on OWL, is used for describing web services. Once the semantic service descriptions have been analyzed to find the appropriate web services, the services are invoked using their syntactic WSDL descriptions.

Semantic Web Services framework for manufacturing industries

Application of Semantic Web Services (SWS) relies on ontologies which model existing explicit knowledge in problem domain. Adaptation of SWS to manufacturing industries rises a number of important questions among which is the separation of responsibilities between different vendors starting from system component manufacturers and ending with the system user. This paper gives a possible solution to settle these responsibilities and describes the architecture for the orchestration of semantic web services.

Service oriented architecture in developing of loosely-coupled manufacturing systems

The control of manufacturing systems is traditionally addresses the needs of products or product family that the system is going to manufacture. That is, the needs for the products are defined prior to the design of the production line. Although some degree of flexibility (in the terms of product family) can be implemented in the system, such systems may still have limitations in not allowing rapid reconfiguration as a new product with unforeseen needs arrives at runtime. Such a scenario usually requires (partial) reprogramming of the production line to accommodate new products. This paper presents a service-oriented orchestration framework for seamless integration of service-enabled devices to allow rapid reconfiguration and dynamic discovery of the devices abstracted as web services.

An application of BPEL for service orchestration in an industrial environment

Traditionally, the application of services can be attributed to so-called office automation. While opening new horizons in software development life cycle, web services have gained increased attention in other domains as well, including the domain of factory automation (software development for factory automation). Coming from pure software to the physical realm involving industrial equipment, the application of web services sets some additional demands for these domains where no simple roll-back or application recovery procedures can easily be implemented due to operations on the states in the physical world. This paper discusses orchestration of web services with BPEL and a set of software tools for developing BPEL processes considered for a simple case study. The example is taken from the domain of factory automation in order to highlight some of the main issues arising during the process of service orchestration.

Ontology‐based context‐sensitive computing for FMS optimization

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present an ontology‐based approach of context‐sensitive computing for the optimization of flexible manufacturing systems (FMS).Design/methodology/approach – A context‐sensitive computing approach is presented, integrated on top of FMS control platform. The approach addresses how to extract manufacturing contexts at source, how to process contextual entities by developing an ontology‐based context model and how to utilize this approach for real time decision making to optimize the key performance indicators (KPIs). A framework for such an optimization support system is proposed. A practical FMS use case within SOA‐based control architecture is considered as an illustrative example and the implementation of the core functionalities to the use case is reported.Findings – Continuous improvement of the factory can be enhanced utilizing context‐sensitive support applications, which provides an intelligent interface for knowledge acquisition and elicitation. This can be ...

Maintaining a Dynamic View of Semantic Web Services Representing Factory Automation Systems

Software agents controlling production devices must maintain an up-to-date view of the physical world state in order to efficiently reason and plan their actions. Especially in a factory automation system, the world state undergoes rapid evolution, and the world view must remain synchronized with the changes. This paper discusses two approaches to updating the world view based on event notifications sent by web services representing production devices in a manufacturing system. One of the approaches is based on separately specified update rules, and one automatically uses the semantic web service descriptions formulated in OWL-S. While this paper specifically focuses on the factory automation domain, the approaches presented are applicable to other domains as well.

On the Updating of Domain OWL Models at Runtime in Factory Automation Systems

Software agents controlling production devices must maintain an up-to-date view of the physical world state in order to efficiently reason and plan their actions. Especially in a factory automation system, the world state undergoes rapid evolution. To enable accurate decision-making, the world view must constantly be synchronized with the changes. This paper discusses two approaches to updating the world view based on event notifications sent by web services representing production devices in a manufacturing system. One approach requires that a set of update rules is separately specified, whereas the other involves automatically deriving the update rules from the semantic web service descriptions. While this paper specifically focuses on the factory automation domain, both of the approaches presented are applicable to other domains as well. The main assumptions are that the domain is composed of world-altering web services, which provide adequate service interfaces to detect changes in their state, and that all relevant changes in the overall domain state can be directly derived from the service state changes.

Planning-based semantic web service composition in factory automation

WSDL annotation conventions facilitate semantic web service description derivation.A software agent composes semantic web services to achieve production goals.Graphical user interfaces visualize domain model and workflow execution statuses.Preprocessing algorithms neutralize syntactic restrictions imposed by AI planners. The Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) paradigm enables production systems to be composed of web services. In an SOA-based production system, the individual production devices provide web service interfaces that encapsulate the behavior of the devices and abstract the implementation details. Such a service-oriented approach makes it possible to apply web service orchestration technologies in the development of production workflow descriptions. While manual formulation of production workflows tends to require considerable effort from domain experts, semantic web service descriptions enable computer algorithms to automatically generate the appropriate web service orchestrations. Such algorithms realize AI planning and employ semantic web service descriptions in determining the workflows required to achieve the production goals desired. In addition, the algorithms can automatically adapt the workflows to unexpected changes in the goals pursued and the production devices available.

Context-aware knowledge-based middleware for selective information delivery in data-intensive monitoring systems

Multiple embedded devices in modern control and monitoring systems are able to sense different aspects of the current context such as environmental conditions, current processes in the system and user state. The number of captured situations in the environment and quantity and variety of devices in the system produce considerable amounts of data, which should be processed, understood and followed by corresponding actions. However, fully delivered to the user regardless of their role in the system and needs, data flows cause cognitive overload and thus may compromise the safety of the system depending on the timely response of the operators. This paper addresses the problem of selective information delivery with respect to the user?s role in the system, his needs and responsibilities, by proposing context-aware information management middleware. The system utilizes Semantic Web technologies by capturing relevant information in the knowledge model of the system, which decouples data from the application logics. A clear division of data and application logics enables context-awareness and facilitates the reconfiguration process, when new information should be added into the system. The chosen approach is justified with an analysis of main trends in context-aware solutions. The engineering principles of the knowledge model are described and illustrated with simple scenarios from the building automation domain. The prototype developed proves the feasibility of the approach via performance evaluation and demonstrates the reconfiguration capabilities of information flows in the system. Further work assumes the extension of the knowledge model and integration of the system with adaptive human-machine interfaces for multi-role and multi-user environments.