scholarly journals Towards a Domain-Specific Approach Enabling Tool-Supported Model-Based Systems Engineering of Complex Industrial Internet-of-Things Applications

Systems ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 21
Author(s):  
Christoph Binder ◽  
Christian Neureiter ◽  
Arndt Lüder

Contemporary manufacturing systems are undergoing a major change promoted by emerging technologies such as Cyber-physical Systems (CPS) or the Internet of Things (IoT). This trend, nowadays widely known by the term “Industry 4.0”, leads to a new kind of automated production. However, the rising number of dynamically interconnected elements in industrial production lines results in such a system being transformed into a complex System of Systems (SoS). Due to the increasing complexity and the challenges accompanied by this change, conventional engineering methods using generic principles reach their limits when developing this type of systems. With varying approaches only trying to find a solution for small-scaled areas of this problem statement, the need for a holistic methodology becomes more and more obvious. Having recognized this issue, one of the most promising approaches has been introduced with the Reference Architecture Model Industry 4.0 (RAMI 4.0). However, in the current point of view, this domain-specific architecture framework is missing specifications to address all aspects of such a critical infrastructure. Thus, this paper introduces a comprehensive modeling approach utilizing methods applied in Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) and including domain-specific particularities as well as architectural concepts with the goal to enable mutual engineering of current and future industrial systems. The resulting artifacts, a domain-specific language (DSL), an architecture definition and a development process, are thereby consolidated in a ready to use software framework, whose applicability was evaluated by a real-world case study.

Electronics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 869
Author(s):  
Pablo F. S. Melo ◽  
Eduardo P. Godoy ◽  
Paolo Ferrari ◽  
Emiliano Sisinni

The technical innovation of the fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0—I4.0) is based on the following respective conditions: horizontal and vertical integration of manufacturing systems, decentralization of computing resources and continuous digital engineering throughout the product life cycle. The reference architecture model for Industry 4.0 (RAMI 4.0) is a common model for systematizing, structuring and mapping the complex relationships and functionalities required in I4.0 applications. Despite its adoption in I4.0 projects, RAMI 4.0 is an abstract model, not an implementation guide, which hinders its current adoption and full deployment. As a result, many papers have recently studied the interactions required among the elements distributed along the three axes of RAMI 4.0 to develop a solution compatible with the model. This paper investigates RAMI 4.0 and describes our proposal for the development of an open-source control device for I4.0 applications. The control device is one of the elements in the hierarchy-level axis of RAMI 4.0. Its main contribution is the integration of open-source solutions of hardware, software, communication and programming, covering the relationships among three layers of RAMI 4.0 (assets, integration and communication). The implementation of a proof of concept of the control device is discussed. Experiments in an I4.0 scenario were used to validate the operation of the control device and demonstrated its effectiveness and robustness without interruption, failure or communication problems during the experiments.


Computers ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salvatore Cavalieri ◽  
Marco Giuseppe Salafia

In the context of Industry 4.0, lot of effort is being put to achieve interoperability among industrial applications. As the definition and adoption of communication standards are of paramount importance for the realization of interoperability, during the last few years different organizations have developed reference architectures to align standards in the context of the fourth industrial revolution. One of the main examples is the reference architecture model for Industry 4.0, which defines the asset administration shell as the corner stone of the interoperability between applications managing manufacturing systems. Inside Industry 4.0 there is also so much interest behind the standard open platform communications unified architecture (OPC UA), which is listed as the one recommendation for realizing the communication layer of the reference architecture model. The contribution of this paper is to give some insights behind modelling techniques that should be adopted during the definition of OPC UA Information Model exposing information of the very recent metamodel defined for the asset administration shell. All the general rationales and solutions here provided are compared with the current OPC UA-based existing representation of asset administration shell provided by literature. Specifically, differences will be pointed out giving to the reader advantages and disadvantages behind each solution.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Z. Neto ◽  
Joel Ravelli Jr ◽  
Eduardo P. Godoy

The Industry 4.0 (I4.0) together with the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) enable business productivity to be improved through rapid changes in production scope in an increasingly volatile market. This technology innovation is perceived by integrating manufacturing systems, managing business rules, and decentralizing computing resources, enabling rapid changes in production systems. The Reference Architecture Model for Industry 4.0 (RAMI 4.0) is a three-dimensional layer model to support I4.0 applications. One of the major challenges for adopting RAMI 4.0 is the development of solutions that support the functionality of each layer and the necessary interactions between the elements of each layer. This paper focuses on the proposal of architecture for flexible manufacturing in I4.0 using all the Information Technology (IT) Layers of the RAMI 4.0. In order to enable a standardized and interoperable communication, the architecture used the OPC-UA protocol to connect the low layers elements in the factory perspective and REST APIs to connect the high layers in the business perspective. The integration architecture creates an online interface to provide the client the ability to enter, view, and even modify an order based on their needs and priorities, enabling the industry to implement rapid changes to adapt to the marketplace.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan David Contreras ◽  
Jose Isidro Garcia ◽  
Juan David Diaz

<p class="0papertitle">The fourth industrial revolution or industry 4.0 has become a trend topic nowadays, this standard-based strategy integrates Smart Factories, Cyber-physical systems, Internet of Things, and Internet of Service with the aim of extended the capacities of the manufacturing systems. Although several authors have presented the advantages of this approach, few papers refer to an architecture that allows the correct implementation of industry 4.0 applications using the guidelines of the reference architecture model (RAMI 4.0). In this way, this article exposes the essential characteristics that allow a manufacturing system to be retrofitting as a correct industry 4.0 application. Specifically, an intelligent manufacturing system under a holonic approach was developed and implemented using standards like FDI, AutomationML and OPC UA according to the RAMI 4.0</p>


Author(s):  
Aleksandr A. Kerzhner ◽  
Christiaan J. J. Paredis

Design synthesis is a fundamental engineering task that involves the generation of a structural specification from a desired functional specification. Although the use of computer tools is common throughout the design process, design synthesis is often a task left to the designer. Formally capturing design synthesis knowledge in models and applying computational synthesis may result in better exploration of the design space and eliminate repetitive design tasks. In this paper, a graph-based framework for capturing and combining design synthesis knowledge is presented for scenarios involving the composition of well defined components into larger systems. This approach fits in the context of Model-Based Systems Engineering where a variety of formal models are used to represent knowledge about a system. This approach uses the Systems Modeling Language developed by The Object Management Group (OMG SysML™) to define both models of possible components and possible system architectures. The framework is illustrated by combining it with an evolutionary algorithm and applying it to an example problem of hydraulic circuit synthesis.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 1532
Author(s):  
Avi Shaked ◽  
Yoram Reich

Model-based Systems Engineering (MBSE) approaches are a step forward in the evolution of computer-aided engineering, and yet, they often incorporate deficiencies that may jeopardize their practical utility and usability, as well as the validity of the resulting models. We demonstrate how a domain-specific modeling approach can relieve some hurdles in adopting MBSE, and how it can be used in tandem with a general-purpose modeling approach to augment and introduce rigor to models. Specifically, we demonstrate the consequences of theoretical issues that were previously identified in Object Process Methodology and suggest an approach to solve them. We use a generalized case-study—derived from extensive process modeling in both academia and industry—to show that a domain-specific model can significantly relax the user’s modeling effort. This demonstration is based on two quantitative metrics: the number of representational elements and available modeling tactics. We discuss the contribution of our approach to model quality, particularly with respect to its rigor and communicability.


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