Requirements for holonic manufacturing systems control

An architecture for metamorphic control of holonic manufacturing systems

The Holonic Manufacturing Systems (HMS) Project is an international industrially driven project addressing systemization and standardization, research, pre-competitive development, deployment and support of architectures and technologies for open, distributed, intelligent, autonomous and co-operating systems on a global basis. During its ten-year program, the HMS Project has developed specifications of holonic architectures, a computer-aided environment for the encapsulation, reuse and integration of holonic systems technologies, and libraries of demonstrated, reusable technologies and tools for the construction of holonic manufacturing systems. These next-generation holonic systems are providing the flexibility, agility and robustness necessary for the rapid delivery of custom manufactured products in competitive global markets. By building on the results of Phase 1 of the HMS Project that emphasized the development of generic technologies and their demonstration in specific application areas, Phase 2 will achieve their integration and application at three levels of the manufacturing and supply chain enterprise: Holonic Control Devices, consisting of the technical manufacturing equipment; Holonic Production Sites and Physical Equipment, comprising the manufacturing work cells; Holonic Planning and Execution Systems, providing scheduling and control of the holonic manufacturing system and a virtual test bed environment for holonic system implementations; and Holonic Man-Machine and Emulation Systems, a virtual test-bed environment for holonic system implementations.

Industrial Process Measurement and Control Systems are used in most of the industrial sectors to achieve production improvement, process optimization and time and cost reduction. Integration, reuse, flexibility and optimization are demanded to adapt to a rapidly changing and competitive market. In fact, standardization is a key goal to achieve these goals. The international standardization efforts have lead to the definition of the IEC 61131 standard. Part 3 of this standard defines a software model for defining automation projects as well as 5 programming languages. Nowadays, a major part of Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC) vendors follows this standard, although each programming tool adds particularities and stores the automation project in different manner. But, although they may use the same software model and the same programming languages, source code reuse is not available. This work presents an infrastructure that allows transferring source code from one PLC programming tool to any other transparently to the users. The proposal consists of a textual expression of the software model and the programming languages, as well as the mechanisms, based on XML technologies, to achieve tool interoperability.

As the existing control architectures for FMS have many problems with respect to flexibility, re-configuration and software development, which become worse as the system size increases, the international IMS research programme proposed a new manufacturing philosophy called the Holonic Manufacturing System (HMS). Under the notion of HMS, manufacturing systems are built from a modular mix of standardised, autonomous and co-operative agents called holons. Inspired by such emerging concept, we carried out this research with the aim of devising a holonic control framework, which is suitable for future FMS shop floor scheduling and control. This paper addresses the design of the proposed framework as well as the underlying holonic philosophy. In order to verify the applicability of the framework, an experimental simulation system has been developed on a real-time and distributed computer platform. The system consists of a set of holon prototypes capable of performing real-time scheduling for both manufacturing and transportation tasks, and a collection of interacting software modules that assist the simulation running on these prototypes. Experimental results acquired from the simulation have demonstrated that the framework is extensible and re-configurable. Implementation of the simulation system also provides direction and a workable foundation for further research and development on HMS.

Metrics for evaluating distributed manufacturing control systems

Engineering Holonic Manufacturing Systems

The holonic manufacturing system paradigm is a derivation of a classical framework theory, and has implications at all levels of a manufacturing system. In this paper, the authors present the main concepts of holonic systems and some issues related to the collaboration and coordination aspects in this context. Finally, some considerations of implementation are made.

The Industrie 4.0 initiative emphasizes the consistent digitalization and linking of all productive units, including the definition of industrial control systems. This work proposes a model-based approach to develop Industrial Process Measurement and Control Systems. It uses modern software technologies but software complexity is wrapped using the notation, syntax and semantics of the field. It is UML modeling tool independent, due to the definition of domain profiles. It is also PLC programming tool independent, as the software architecture is generated following the PLCopen XML standard.

Industrial Process Measurement and Control Systems (IPMCS) are used in most of the industrial sectors to achieve production improvement, process optimization and time and cost reduction. Integration, reuse, flexibility and optimization are demanded to adapt to a rapidly changing and competitive market. There is also a growing requirement that all software tools that support the different phases of the development process can be integrated as well. Thus, a consolidation of modeling methodologies for achieving this goal is needed. In this paper, a component-based model of the implementation (hardware and software) is proposed. In particular, the software architecture is defined to follow the software model of the IEC 61131-3 standard. The work presented here is related to how to create PLC automation projects from the application model. The different steps needed depend on the PLC programming tool. The paper analyses the different cases and the use of XML technologies to generate the automation projects for all the PLCs defined in the hardware architecture.

IEC61499 Service Interface Function Blocks to Access Decentralized Peripherals with Profibus DP

Implementation of Eye-Tracking Technology in Holonic Manufacturing Systems

8 - Real-time fault-tolerant control systems

The field of holonic manufacturing was initiated in the early 1990s to address the upcoming challenges for manufacturing operations in the 21st century. It is intended to support highly responsive organizations by providing a modular building block or 'plug and play' capability for developing and operating a manufacturing production system. The holonic approach can be viewed as an alternative to more hierarchical operations management methods such as those based on computer- integrated manufacturing (CIM). Since 1990, an increasing amount of research has been conducted in holonic manufacturing over a diverse range of industries and applications, with a strong emphasis on how holonic systems will perform the different planning and control functions required to manage a production operation. The planning and control work to date has, however, been focussed on specific problem formulations and solution strategies. The intention of this paper is to provide an overview of the use of holonic manufacturing concepts in production planning and control which is accessible to both practitioners and researchers in the area. The aims of the paper are as follows. To define clearly what is meant by a holonic manufacturing system and to demonstrate the relevance of its development to production planning and control. To motivate holonic manufacturing based on a business rationale, demonstrating specifically how it can support improved responsiveness and the management of production complexity. To review existing work in holonic manufacturing systems relevant to production planning and control, and provide an analysis of the scope and applicability of these results.

After the description of the underlying principles on which the “multiagentbased production control” technology and the “holonic manufacturing control” concept within the intelligent manufacturing system paradigm are based, this work proposes an approach that supports the design of agent-based manufacturing control systems for different industrial holonic manufacturing scenarios. The results of the application to a pilot cell at industrial level are very promissory, showing that the approach seems to be very suited in accommodating heterogeneous hardware and software components in both their manufacturing control and information system, and in integrating existing/legacy systems.KeywordsFlexible Manufacturing SystemProduction AgentLogical DependencyTransport AgentManufacturing ObjectThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

This paper addresses a new approach for modeling of versatile controllers in industrial automation and process control systems such as pneumatic controllers. Some fractional order dynamical models are developed for pressure and pneumatic systems with bellows-nozzle-flapper configuration. In the light of fractional calculus, a fractional order derivative-derivative (FrDD) controller and integral-derivative (FrID) are remodeled. Numerical simulations illustrate the application of the obtained theoretical results in simple examples.