Flexible production experts for reconfigurable assembly technology

Progess beyond the state of the art

To realise highly flexible production systems, various scientific concepts have been developed including human integration. The summary of the state of the current realisations and the corresponding XPRESS R&D challenges is shown below:

1.Production Manufactrons

State of the art of current realisation:

PABADIS resident agent technology
SIOUX knowledge base structure

XPRESS R&D challenges:

PE intelligence
-Generic Manufactron situation analysis system
-TDD parser
-Feature generator
-Analysis system instances
-Generic Manufactron method search engine
-Sample space analyser / Metrics generator
-Similarity measurement
-Decision maker
-Search engine instances
-Manufactron knowledge base structure

PE functionality
-Manufactron data model
-Manufactron behaviour model

2.Worker integration

State of the art of current realisation:

-Standard HMI
-Augmented and mixed reality HMI
-Person and tool tracking
-Situation graphs

XPRESS R&D challenges:

Human Manufactron wrapper software
-Manufactron HMI concept
-Manufactron communication converter
-Manufactron interaction scheme converter

Worker activity understanding system
-Sensory system
-Human tracking system
-Tool tracking system
-Interpretation system

Integrative HMI concept and system

3.Workflow manager

State of the art of current realisation:

PABADIS mobile agent concept

XPRESS R&D challenges:

Generic WM structure
-Realisation scheme of WM using agent technologies

WM agent data and agent methods to conform with WM functionality
-product tracking, UC communication, quality data gathering and assessment

Creation of WM knowledge base (where existing WMs are retrieved) according to XPRESS structure

WM execution system

4.Configuration Manufactron

State of the art of current realisation:

Existing assembly planning products Delmia (Airbus), and possibly Tecnomatix
PABADIS agent factory based on Grasshopper MAS

XPRESS R&D challenges:

-Generic CE structure using existing planning products based on PPR (Product, Process, Resources) model
-Extension with Manufactron knowledge structure
-Information demand gathering from Production Manufactrons
-Manufactron information supply and corresponding data access
-Optimisation control
-Integration of agent factory producing workflow managers