Mircea Murar

Providing Configurability and Plug-and-Play Capability to Simple Sensors: A Step towards Smart Sensors for Smart Factories

A modality to boost up the abilities of simple sensors for providing extended configurability options and plug-and-play capability along with great scalability, integrability, rapid customization and modularity is reported in this paper. An embedded architecture that requires both electronic and software designs is employed for expanding sensor capability. Self-integration, configuration, data computation from the sensor, analog-to-digital data conversion and data processing relative to configuration options are investigated. Based on the approach proposed, an embedded sensor-system, consisting of a network of microcontrollers and sensors capable to respond to configurability and fast integrability requirements, is built and tested within this research. Tests have shown the smart sensor-system is functional, feasible, cost-effective, easy-to-use and highly reconfigurable. Integration of such sensors within reconfigurable, autonomous and distributed manufacturing systems is thus possible.

Control Architecture for Plug-and-Play Intelligent Axes within Fast Reconfigurable Manufacturing Equipments

A new perspective on a control architecture, capable to increase the overall performance of the manufacturing equipment by endowing it with distributed intelligence, thus providing short ramp-up times, plug-and-play capability, great integrability and scalability, together with cost reduction, is presented in this paper. The architecture concept, based on the outcome of applying specific problem solving methods, shows an intelligent axis equipped with a network of smart sensors and units controlled and supervised by a master control unit. The proposed solution is based on both electronic and software designs in order to expand equipment performances and take a step forward in supporting manufacturing systems towards reconfigurability. An experimental testing bench has been constructed around a mechanical axis for exploring control architecture performances and intelligent axis concept feasibility. Results have shown that the proposed control architecture is functional, highly reconfigurable, cost effective, and the concept of intelligent axis is feasible.

A Literature Survey on Reconfigurable Industrial Robotic Work Cells

As the unpredictability of market needs and the mass customization trends increase, employing reconfigurable industrial robotic work cells becomes a viable solution for manufacturers. A reconfigurable manufacturing system is a system designed for a quick change in structure, both in hardware and software, in order to rapidly adjust production capacity and functionalities. However, the approach is quite general; a simple search within scientific literature, patent databases or the world-wide-web returns thousands of results, covering a time period from the 80s to date. Among the results, different approaches on reconfigurable industrial robotic work cell implementations can be easily noticed. This paper surveys the literature in reconfigurable industrial robotic work cells, aiming to identify, besides the most important approaches on this topic, also performance criteria associated to robotic workcell reconfigurability and means of measuring the reconfigurability degree of such cells. The survey also aims to identify command and control architectures used to achieve various levels of reconfigurability. The survey was conducted by using a specific search methodology, which is also presented in the paper.

Design of smart connected manufacturing resources to enable changeability, reconfigurability and total-cost-of-ownership models in the factory-of-the-future

The fourth industrial revolution requires higher capabilities of changeability and reconfigurability (C–R) of the future factories (FoF), as well as a higher focus on business models that are based on total-cost-of-ownership (TCO) paradigm. Up to date, there are little scientific contributions to deploy C–R into TCO models, as well as to systematic plan and design manufacturing resources such as to facilitate FoF ecosystem. In order to address this issue, this paper introduces research results that show how to deploy C–R, connectivity, smartness and TCO requirements into the technical solutions of manufacturing resources of FoF. Contributions emerging from this research include an index to measure C–R capability of manufacturing resources, a model to assess economic feasibility of a FoF over its lifecycle, as well as a methodology and related tools to design smart connected manufacturing resources with embedded features to facilitate changeability and reconfigurability in a FoF. Theoretical contributions are explained through a case study of a fast reconfigurable robotic manufacturing cell. Preliminary results demonstrate that it is possible to rapid design smart connected manufacturing resources and integrate them into FoF architectures that support convertibility, integrability, modifiability, adaptability, serviceability, scalability, integration of resources from various producers, service clustering and cloud-based services.

Monitoring and Control of Dual-Arm Industrial Robot Tasks Using IoT Application and Services

In the context of latest technological revolution, Industry 4.0, connectivity and therefore access and control of cyber-physical systems and resources from any place, at any time by any means represent a technological enabler of crucial importance. The first part of this paperwork contains a brief introduction of cyber-physical systems and IoT concepts, together with a review of major IoT providers. The second part introduces an approach towards achieving connectivity and remote control of task selection for a dual-arm industrial robot using a commercially available IoT infrastructure and technology provided by ioBridge. Within the third part, details about experimental testing and evaluation of the selected solutions are presented. The last part is allocated for conclusions and further research directions.

Smart CPS: vertical integration overview and user story with a cobot

ABSTRACT In this paper, an overview and a demonstration for the vertical integration of manufacturing enterprise layers are described by implementing the manufacturing execution system (MES). In the first part of the paper, the details regarding the MES implementation are described, while in the second part, the use case-specific insights are highlighted. The presented use case contains each important step of a production line involving also a collaborative Baxter-type robot and the state-of-the-art tools for MES implementation. The cobot-involved use case is relevant and generic enough in the context of Industry 4.0 offering a good overview of a typical vertical integration use case which can be generalised and applied to manufacturing scenarios. The paper ends with the lessons learned from the vertical integration process as well as future direction which can be followed in such a context.