Advanced Computing System
The development of this test-bed production environment requires specialised hardware components such as cyber-physical systems (CPS), control systems with real-time and spatial constraints acting on the physical environment, which integrate the general concepts of Control, Computation and Communication, with the dynamic characteristics of physical and engineering systems.
From the point of view of the current project, the CPS is the paradigm of an embedded system capable of providing production processes with the capacity to adapt to both manufacturing conditions and to changes in the product or good to be generated.
A CPS is a set of computing and communication systems that interact with the physical world in real time.
CPS in advanced manufacturing
This physical world, distributed by nature, is changeable and imposes restrictions on access and manipulation. Consider, for example, a production system with robots integrated in line for handling parts, in an environment with humans participating in the process. Sensors, located on both robots and humans, would allow locating obstacles, planning trajectories and reaching targets by exchanging information between robot control systems and those distributed in the plant for human localisation.
The complex environments that arise in an advanced manufacturing scenario are made up of heterogeneous systems, communicated through standards that are capable of cooperating, coordinating and adapting to an environment for the manufacture of increasingly agile and efficient products.
Automated production management
CPS is also of particular interest for production strategy and supply chain engineering. The control of production systems through CPS operating with robust optimisation algorithms in real time allows the recalculation of production schedules in the event of unexpected events (machine stoppages, lack of materials, urgent orders, etc.). This enables direct reprogramming of automatic and semi-automatic machines, speeding up production and minimising downtime.
Additionally, this automated production management can be combined with the generation of automatic changes in the task masters of the operators, as these are still very present in many small companies with low levels of digitisation. In this way, a rebalancing of workloads can be achieved, maximising the efficiency of production systems.
