A Survey: Microservices Architecture in Advanced Manufacturing Systems

Automation systems become more and more complex, and their traditional hierarchical and centralized control may not be able to deal with this ever-increasing complexity satisfactorily. Decentralized approaches are considered promising, but they are not yet sufficiently understood for widespread industrial application. In particular, agent-based control has not yet achieved its potential, so that more research is still required. Our approach is based on the concept of an automation agent composed of a hardware (HW) component and a software (SW) component, where the HW component can be viewed as an embodiment of this SW component. These agents represent the parts of a flexible automation system. In particular, we propose that each such agent has an explicit symbolic representation of itself and of its relations to its environment. More precisely, this new agent architecture contains a reflective world model that includes a representation of this same agent and of its relations to its environment. In addition, the world model contains representations of situations and activities. We show that and how such a self-representation can be used for self-configuration, as well as monitoring, including failure detection in automation systems. The agent performs this self-configuration without any human intervention and just based on a brief specification of the HW configuration. The monitoring is based on automatically raised expectations for the system's behavior and allows failure detection without any specific failure detection code.

This paper presents the communication programming method between a robot and an external computer based on the remote produce call (RPC) communication method, which realize the robot distributed controlling network system model. A new robot off-line programming method is developed using these communication method and network model. Furthermore, as an example, a robot auto-marking and auto-cutting of shipbuilding profile system is developed, which proves the effectiveness of the methods for a flexible robotic automation system. Finally, the paper describes the new method for developing the automation system.

The microservice architectural style is an emerging trend in software engineering that allows building highly scalable and flexible systems. However, current state of the art provides only limited insight into the particular security concerns of microservice system. With this paper, we seek to unravel some of the mysteries surrounding microservice security by: providing a taxonomy of microservices security; assessing the security implications of the microservice architecture; and surveying related contemporary solutions, among others Docker Swarm and Netflix security decisions. We offer two important insights. On one hand, microservice security is a multi-faceted problem that requires a layered security solution that is not available out of the box at the moment. On the other hand, if these security challenges are solved, microservice architectures can improve security; their inherent properties of loose coupling, isolation, diversity, and fail fast all contribute to the increased robustness of a system. To address the lack of security guidelines this paper describes the design and implementation of a simple security framework for microservices that can be leveraged by practitioners. Proof-of-concept evaluation results show that the performance overhead of the security mechanisms is around 11%.

Although articulated robots with flexible automation systems are essential for implementing smart factories, their high initial investment costs make them difficult for small and medium-sized enterprises to implement. This study proposes a federated learning-based articulated robot control framework to improve the task completion of multiple articulated robots used in automated systems under limited computing resources. The proposed framework consists of two modules: (1) a federated learning module for the cooperative training of multiple joint robots on a part-picking task and (2) an articulated robot control module to balance the efficiency of limited resources. The proposed framework is applied to cases with different numbers of joint robots, and its performance is evaluated in terms of training completion time, resource share ratio, network traffic, and completion time of a picking task. Under the devised framework, the experiment demonstrates object recognition by three joint robots with an accuracy of approximately 80% at a minimum number of learning rounds of 76 and with a network traffic intensity of 2303.5 MB. As a result, this study contributes to the expansion of federated learning use for articulated robot control in limited environments, such as small and medium-sized enterprises.

The multi-agent systems paradigm, enhanced with biological inspired concepts, such as swarm intelligence and self-organization, offers an alternative way to design control solutions that address the current demands for flexible, robust, responsive and adaptive manufacturing and automation systems. Being the development of these systems traditionally complex, the use of modelling and simulating environments may contribute for the fast prototyping and proof of concept of these solutions. This paper explores the use of these environments and uses the NetLogo platform to illustrate the development of an agent-based control application for an experimental production system. The designed and tested agent-based system exhibits robustness and adaptation to changing environments based on the stigmergy concept.

Home automation is a modern technology that helps to enjoy comfortable living conditions inside the home. With home automation, data can be instantly collected and passed between devices and analyzed simultaneously. By connecting the home appliances with the internet, they can be easily accessed from anywhere. In the home automation system, settings are feasible through smartphones or other remote-control devices. This paper gives the design and implementation of a new voice- controlled home automation system that uses Google Assistant for giving user’s voice commands as input. It is a low cost and flexible home automation and monitoring system. It enables the user to use a home automation system based on the Internet of Things (IoT). Home appliances like fans and lights can be controlled. The fundamental purpose of this project is to control electronic appliances based on the situational demands of the user.

The collected information related to the activities along the life cycle of an automation solution serves as basis for the comparative evaluation between a classically developed system and a mechatronicly developed decentralized system. The following results have been worked out with the characteristics from decentralized automation use cases as introduced in Section 3 in combination with the described mechatronic engineering approaches. The general advantages of engineering with mechatronic modules, such as, for instance, cross-discipline- work and the improved reuse or standardization of partial solutions, were already discussed in other papers and shall not be described here any further (Thramboulidis 2008, Löwen & Wagner 2009, VDI 2206). Application Effort and Complexity: The applicability and manageability of a modular, decentralized automation approach ­ particularly regarding the modularization of automation and control functionalities ­ must still be ensured. For this purpose, one must differentiate between the creation of the mechatronically modules in a predevelopment project and their application in the particular engineering projects. Overall, it can be expected that the specification and implementation effort to be performed in advance and the complexity for the creation of mechatronic modules with integrated automation and control functions, which are autonomous and can be integrated independently of each other, will increase substantially. For this purpose, bases for modules have to be created that are usable for different projects and configurable for the specific applications. This requires detailed knowledge of the domain, extensive technological expertise, and an understanding of the core functionality of the modules. One example for a starting point for this approach is the INTEGRA standard specifying first consistent mechatronic viewpoints for automotive production lines. These pre-produced modules facilitate the engineering for project-specific applications. The more plug&play modules are available the less effort is required for the engineering. In addition, project risks can be reduced by early validation of fulfillment of customer requirements due to availability of module descriptions and models. This, however, only applies if module adaptations occur which can be done by configuration, selection of variants, or extensions, and in which do not require any changes to the predefined core

The rapid advancement of the Internet of Things (IoT) has revolutionized home automation, enabling remote monitoring and control of household appliances with minimal human intervention. This paper presents a low-cost, flexible, and scalable smart home automation system leveraging IoT technology. The system integrates sensors such as Passive Infrared (PIR), IR, rain, and water level sensors with microcontrollers (Arduino Nano and NodeMCU) to provide real-time monitoring and control via a web-based interface. Key features include intrusion detection, environmental monitoring (IR leaks, water levels, and rainfall), and remote appliance control. The proposed system eliminates the need for a dedicated server, reducing costs while enhancing security and energy efficiency. Experimental results demonstrate successful implementation with real-time alerts and data visualization, validating the system’s reliability and practicality for modern smart homes. Key Words: IoT, Smart Home Automation, Arduino, NodeMCU, Security, Remote Monitoring

Internet of Things (IoT) conceptualizes the idea of remotely connecting and monitoring real world objects through the Internet. Home monitoring and home automation are utilized in order to uphold the comfortable living conditions within a home. This IoT project focuses on building a smart wireless home automation system. A low cost flexible and reliable home automation system with additional security using Arduino microcontroller, with IP connectivity through local Wi-Fi for accessing and controlling devices by authorized user remotely using Smart phone application. The proposed system is server independent and uses Internet of Things to control human desired appliances starting from industrial machine to consumer goods. To demonstrate the effectiveness and feasibility of this system, we present a home automation system using Arduino IDE software and ESP-32 microcontroller as a connectivity module. It helps the user to control various appliances such as light, fan, TV and can take decision based on the feedback of sensors remotely

Workflow technology is the core technology to realize business process modeling, process operation, monitoring and management, and ultimately realize business process automation. Workflow-based office automation system can separate code writing and the operation mode. When business processes need to be changed, there is no need to modify the program. Users only need to customize the workflow through the visual process customization mode. The workflow engine is the core of the whole workflow management system and the control center of the whole system. This article designs a workflow engine based on a relational structure, including the design of workflow engine class, functional component, interface and database. Finally, a flexible office automation system with customizable business processes is implemented.

A concurrent engineering system to support flexible automation in furniture production

Due to the quick evolution of manufacturing processes, the demand for more flexible automation systems is on the rise. To answer these requirements, distributed control architecture based on intelligent drives and CAN networks tends more and more to replace the traditional solutions. CAN was designed and applied in car networking in order to reduce the complexity of the related wiring harnesses. The traditional CAN application technique must be change in order to achieve the real time communication constraints of a distributed control system. In this paper is designed a special purpose scheduler for CAN, which ensure a maximum transmission time for a message. A distributed control system is developed and the proposed scheduler is experimentally validated.

Industry 4.0 is a paradigm that plays a central role in the development of future automation systems. A new generation of industrial automation aims to increase the agility of automation systems. In this context, cooperation with the IT world is an important prerequisite to achieving the requested agility. Therefore, new architectures and solutions have to be developed to realize cooperation between automation and IT systems. The goal of this work is to present for the process industry an architectural design for industrial control systems in order to provide them with a higher level of connectivity and agility.

The convergence of edge computing and microservices architecture represents a transformative shift in how organizations process and manage distributed data systems. This article explores the limitations of traditional cloud-centric approaches and presents edge computing as a solution to address these challenges. Through a detailed analysis of real-world implementations across various sectors, including autonomous vehicles, smart cities, and industrial automation, the article examines how edge computing integrated with microservices architecture improves system performance, reduces latency, and optimizes resource utilization. The article investigates deployment challenges and security considerations and provides insights into effective monitoring strategies. Furthermore, the article explores emerging technologies and future research directions that will shape the evolution of edge computing and microservices integration.

The emergence of edge computing has also changed the way contemporary applications are designed, with the focus put on achieving high-resilience, low-latency software programs that are deployed on decentralized and resource-limited systems. Edge-native software is software purposely made to operate at the edge of a network, to allow processing of real-time data, lower bandwidth consumption, and greater fault resiliency. This paradigm is particularly critical to those areas, including autonomous systems, industrial automation, smart cities, and energy infrastructure, that need sub-second responsiveness and system trustworthiness. In this paper, an in-depth design framework of edge-native applications based on microservices architecture is described. Some of the main principles that we discuss are decentralization, data locality, stateless vs. stateful design, redundancy, fault domain isolation and so on. Reference architecture is proposed to support scalable deployments in the event of network partition, and self-healing and management qualities in processing consistent data across heterogeneous edge nodes. We consider powered-up technologies such as lightweight container orchestration (i.e., K3S, Docker), edge communication (i.e., MQTT, gRPC), and Chaos engineering. The performance of the architecture in the latency, fault, and resource stress situations is confirmed by experimental results on the Kubernetes-based edge testbed. The results show that edge-native solutions have the potential to surpass the cloud-based model in measures of latency, throughput, fault recovery, and energy efficiency. We also comment on representative use cases like cars on autopilot and predictive maintenance, and discover such issues as the complexity of orchestration, safety, and managing AI models at the edge