Computer aided part manufacturing

The decisions made by manufacturing engineers have to be flavoured by the value system of the times. The rapid change in value systems caused by the human/environmental revolution, will bring about the beginning of a new epoch in manufacturing. This will make old ways of doing things obsolete, but also create new possibilities. Therefore, manufacturing industry may change to a new pattern better adapted to the new environments.In order to meet this challenge in the Norweigan society, an industrial concept, a cell concept, has been developed by the Production Engineering Laboratory NTH-SINTEF. Vital parts of the cell concept have been tested in a full scale pilot plant, in which a variety of diesel engine parts are machined.Part programming, machine loading and scheduling in the cell together with the cell control functions, are performed computer aided, using a three level computer hierarchy.     

The emerging STEP standard for product-model data exchange

The International Organization for Standardization's (ISO's) standard for the exchange of product-model data (STEP) is discussed. The goal of this standard, officially named ISO 10303, is to facilitate the computer-readable exchange of the total information used to define an industrial product. As a standard method for digital product definition. STEP will support communications among heterogeneous computer environments. The standard will make it easier to integrate systems that perform various product life-cycle functions, such as design, manufacturing, and logistics support, and will help facilitate concurrent engineering. The current electronic domain standards are reviewed. The ways in which STEP differs from them are outlined     

A digital twin to train deep reinforcement learning agent for smart manufacturing plants: Environment,interfaces and intelligence

Filling the gaps between virtual and physical systems will open new doors in Smart Manufacturing. This work proposes a data-driven approach to utilize digital transformation methods to automate smart manufacturing systems. This is fundamentally enabled by using a digital twin to represent manufacturing cells, simulate system behaviors, predict process faults, and adaptively control manipulated variables. First, the manufacturing cell is accommodated to environments such as computer-aided applications, industrial Product Lifecycle Management solutions, and control platforms for automation systems. Second, a network of interfaces between the environments is designed and implemented to enable communication between the digital world and physical manufacturing plant, so that near-synchronous controls can be achieved. Third, capabilities of some members in the family of Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) are discussed with manufacturing features within the context of Smart Manufacturing. Trained results for Deep Q Learning algorithms are finally presented in this work as a case study to incorporate DRL-based artificial intelligence to the industrial control process. As a result, developed control methodology, named Digital Engine, is expected to acquire process knowledges, schedule manufacturing tasks, identify optimal actions, and demonstrate control robustness. The authors show that integrating a smart agent into the industrial platforms further expands the usage of the system-level digital twin, where intelligent control algorithms are trained and verified upfront before deployed to the physical world for implementation. Moreover, DRL approach to automated manufacturing control problems under facile optimization environments will be a novel combination between data science and manufacturing industries.     

Computer-aided visual inspection for integrated quality control

This paper first briefly introduces the fundamentals of automated inspection techniques, followed by a categorization of typical applications. At its focus the paper elaborates on issues relating to the need for, the approach to and the benefits of integrating automatic inspection systems within the context of computer integrated PCB manufacturing. It argues that automatic inspection systems should assume the role of not only quality inspection systems but also important quality information generators on the shop floor. In particular, integrated quality control will be realized through an integration of inspection systems with process/quality control systems such as statistical process control (SPC).     

A computer network based control architecture for autonomous distributed multirobot systems

This paper presents the specification and implementation procedure using a microcomputer network based autonomous distributed control architecture for industrial multirobot systems. The procedure is based on the concept of data flow network controlled by communicating sequential processes to perform coordinated tasks. Robots and other computerized industrial devices such as conveyors and manufacturing machines are defined as object-oriented Petri nets. A modular and hierarchical approach is adopted to define a set of Petri net type diagrams which represent concurrent activities of control processes for such devices. Asynchronous and synchronous interactions are modelled by places and transitions, respectively, in global process interaction nets. The control software is implemented on a computer network using Inmos transputers with true parallel processing and message passing primitives efficiently handled in hardware. Petri net based models are directly and efficiently transformed to corresponding codes in occam, the high level parallel programming language defined for the transputer.     

Computer communications in the eighties — time to put it all together

This paper provides some broad views on the applications environment of the eighties for computer/communications systems, and some of the technical challenges it represents. Perhaps the biggest challenge will be to make these systems easier to install, service and, especially, to use.The growth of distributed computing will underscore the importance of flexibly layered system architectures that can grow with the times, and the role of gateways in allowing different networks to exchange information.For communications within an establishment, two philosophies have emerged: the intelligent, digital PABX and the broadband, shared network. Outside the establishment, there are also many approaches which will continue to coexist.The options available have become so numerous that improved simulation and modeling tools represent a major technical challenge for the decade. And as networks grow increasingly complex and indispensible to their owners, the need for network management tools will become even more critical.How well the computer and communications communities handle these challenges will determine both the future growth of these industries and whether the newly emerging information services of the eighties will realize their true potential.     

Pioneering work in the field of computer process control

Dreams of using digital computers in industrial control systems surfaced almost as soon as such a computer was invented in the mid to late 1940s. By the early fifties, the concepts of such use were fairly well established. However, actual applications had to wait until relatively small, reliable, and also relatively inexpensive machines were available, along with vendor companies with the will and the initiative to pursue this field vigorously Such a company was the Ramo-Wooldridge Company, which entered this field in the mid-fifties. The company found ready acceptance of its products among the companies in the process industries. By the mid-sixties, there were installations in almost every process industry and many other vendors had entered the field. Such installations became the norm for computer applications to industrial control until the microprocessor and its associated distributed computer control systems superseded them beginning in the mid-seventies. The article chronicles the development of this early field by describing several of the early installations and their successes and difficulties     

Data communications controls

Computer systems employing data communications networks, such as distributed data processing systems, on line real-time computer systems, and electronic funds transfer systems are expected to significantly increase in the future. These systems require the electronic transmission of messages between a sending station and a receiving station. However, the message transmitted from the sending station may be distorted, modified, or destroyed due to faulty equipment, power fluctuations, cross-talk, and atmospheric conditions. To insure that the receiving end obtains the original message, proper controls must be incorporated into the data communications network. This paper will examine the following data communications controls: integrity controls, privacy and confidentiality measures, and backup and recovery controls.     

Graphical control of manufacturing work cells

One vital aspect of the CIM vision is the ever increasing need to control and coordinate the functions of numerous industrial devices within one common manufacturing zone, commonly referred to as a work cell and controlled by one computer. Different industrial devices have different protocols and methods of operation making this task difficult and complex. In addition, the overall logic developed for the coordination of the work cell must be flexible to change for different parts and families, and there must be means to store it for retrieval at a later point in time. The paper describes a software package that provides a generic, graphical interface for manufacturing work cell coordination and control. Developed in C within the CADKEY environment, it allows the user to develop flowcharts for sequencing and coordinating the execution of sub-programs that are collectively responsible for the actual functioning of a work cell. The formulated logic can be used to visualize work cell operation sequences or it can be used to control user-written functions or sub-tasks.     

铸锻工业炉自控系统的优化设计及应用

中冶京诚（营口）中试基地铸锻工程新建多台工业炉,在原有传统工业炉自动控制系统的基础上,采用了一套优化的自动化控制系统。该系统集PLC技术、网络通信技术、计算机技术、测控技术、数据库技术于一体,采用分散控制、集中管理、综合监控的模式,准确掌握各项工艺参数,快速监控设备运行状况,降低了现场操作人员和生产管理者的劳动强度,提高了工业炉测控的自动化程度。     

Future scenarios of parallel computing: Distributed sensor networks

Over the past few years, motivated by the accelerating technological convergence of sensing, computing and communications, there has been a growing interest in potential and technological challenges of Wireless Sensor Network. This paper will introduce a wide range of current basic research lines dealing with ad hoc networks of spatially distributed systems, data rate requirements and constraints, real-time fusion and registration of data from distributed sensors, cooperative control, hypothesis generation, and network consensus filtering. This technical domain has matured to the point where a number of industrial products and systems have appeared. The presentation will also describe the state of the art regarding current and soon-to-appear applications.     

Integration of manufacturing services into virtual environments over the internet

Virtual reality (VR) is a rapidly developing technology that has a wide spectrum of industrial and commercial applications. Networked (distributed or shared) virtual environments (VE) are of growing interest to modern manufacturing industry; a dominating use of networked virtual manufacturing environments (VMEs) is on-line visualisation and collaborative control of 3D information. This has to be supported by real-time data transfer. To meet a broad range of common requirements for Internet-based VE communications, particularly for virtual manufacturing and collaborative design and control, this paper presents a networked virtual environment system that is designed to support networked virtual design and manufacturing. The system is implemented with manufacturing message specification (MMS) standards so as to integrate a range of manufacturing services into networked VEs over the Internet.     

Performance evaluation of switched Ethernet for real-time industrial communications

The real-time industrial network, often referred to as fieldbus, is an important element for building automated manufacturing systems. Thus, in order to satisfy the real-time requirements of field devices such as sensors, actuators, and controllers, numerous standard organizations and vendors have developed various fieldbus protocols. As a result, the IEC 61158 standard, including Profibus, WorldFIP, and Foundation Fieldbus, was recently announced as an international standard. These fieldbus protocols have an important advantage over the widely used Ethernet (IEEE 802.3) in terms of the deterministic characteristics. However, the application of fieldbus has been limited due to the high cost of hardware and the difficulty in interfacing with multivendor products. In order to solve these problems, the computer network technology, especially Ethernet, is being adopted by the industrial automation field. The key technical obstacle for Ethernet for industrial applications is that its nondeterministic behavior makes it inadequate for real-time applications, where the frames containing real-time information, such as control command and alarm signal, have to be delivered within a certain time limit. Recently, the development of switched Ethernet shows a very promising prospect for industrial applications due to the elimination of uncertainties in the network operation that leads to the dramatically improved performance. This paper focuses on the application of the switched Ethernet for industrial communications. More specifically, this paper presents the performance evaluation of the switched Ethernet on an experimental network testbed along with an implementation method for using the switched Ethernet for industrial automation.     

工业机器人的计算机控制

主要讨论了现代制造系统中工业机器人的计算机控制 ,并以IBM7575/ 7576制造控制系统为研究对象 ,介绍了主计算机与工业机器人控制器之间的串行通信 ,以及串行通信协议的建立。最后还叙述了用VisualBasic语言实现主计算机与工业机器人控制器之间的主要通信程序     

One view of the future of industrial control

Computer based, industrial control systems will be the medium for all plant control requirements in the future. This paper further foresees that such control systems will be based upon generic, hierarchical architectural forms which can thus apply to all types of industries. These architectures will be designed to achieve the maximum synergism between the computer system and the coexisting management structure of the plant. This paper outlines the requirements for and the probable form of such computer based control systems.     

Private local automation clouds built by CPS: Potential and challenges for distributed reasoning

The employment of cyber-physical systems allows the control of processes in modern production lines. On the other hand, several research works have recently presented how ontology-based knowledge representation can be a suitable method for modelling industrial systems. However, system models are located far away from where the data is generated which adds complexity for cross-domain communications and resource management. Current embedded devices can encapsulate ontological models that can be accessed as local resources. This article presents the integration of interconnected devices as the computational nodes of a cloud which is private and local. In this way, functionalities, such as knowledge management and process control can be performed closer to the industrial equipment. Moreover, this research work discusses the potential and challenges for performing distributed reasoning in the private local automation cloud. In addition, the article describes main aspects of the system architecture and the behaviour of the networked embedded devices in the cloud. The research work results will be used as a high-level roadmap for further system implementation.     

Engineering complex computer systems: a challenge for computertypes everywhere. I. Let's agree on what these systems are

We define the engineering of complex computer systems as all activities pertinent to specifying, designing, prototyping, building, testing, operating, maintaining, and evolving complex computer systems. While in the past, relatively noncomplex traditional systems sufficed for most computer control applications, the new and emerging demands of applications and the evolution of computer architectures and networks now essentially force systems to be complex, given our current understanding of how to engineer these systems. Complex computer systems are found in almost every industry. These include industrial process control, aerospace and defence, transportation and communications, energy and utilities, medicine and health, commercial data processing, and others. Unfortunately, the state of the art in research and technology has clearly fallen far behind the requirements of industrial, commercial, and government complex computer systems     

Regularizability of complex switched server queueing networks modelled as hybrid dynamical systems

The paper considers the problem of the qualitative analysis of complex switched server queueing networks. Such networks can be used to model various flexible manufacturing, communications, and computer systems. We introduce the concept of regularizability for such systems and obtain a necessary and sufficient condition for a switched server queueing network to be regularizable.     

Flexible manufacturing cells and systems with computer intelligence

Conditions for the introduction of flexible automated manufacturing systems have much improved. Future flexible manufacturing cells and systems will increasingly use computer intelligence. The paper describes system concepts, the design and function of components, system control and supervisory strategies. The planning and introduction of flexible automated manufacturing systems and their economical application will also be discussed.