Tracing products in flexible production systems
Basic Information
Project ID: AEE-2020-14
Students: Pranay Jhunjhunwala, Alexander Järvistö, Juri Voloskin, Oskari Järvi, Kevin Karlsson
Project manager: Juri Voloskin
Instructor: Udayanto Atmojo
Other advisors: Valeriy Vyatkin, Ronal Rodriguez Bejarano, Jan Blech
Starting date: 16.1.2020
Completion date: 8.6.2020
Project Overview
This project under the “Aalto Factory of the Future” initiative demonstrates the potential of a product-centric flexible manufacturing using the IEC 61499 standard. Using mobile robots, distributed control, wireless communication to enable a more adaptable production process and show the benefits of using the IEC 61499 standard as well as product tracing.
Product workflow can be dynamically reacting to various scenarios to fulfil customer order demands and priority designation. Components of the project range from the mobile robots Festo Robotino and ABB YuMi on Milvus SEIT100 automated guided vehicle or AGV to the stationary manufacturing platform EnAS equipped with conveyors, colour cameras, grippers and jacks. Robotino delivers a workpiece to EnAS where it gets processed and the final product is picked up and transported to storage by YuMi AGV.
Automated control through skill profiles and OPC UA software makes use of modularity for the backbone control system logic. VDMA Skill profiles for OPC UA were utilized, which offers generic, standardized executable Skills with basic functionality such as controlling a conveyor. Together Skills create composed Skills which allows execution of complex procedures. The Skills, through OPC UA, provide a Skill State Machine in NXT from NXTcontrol. The State Machines in NXT allows for control to fulfil the production scenarios.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic Aalto locales including offices, meeting rooms and the workshop remained closed for the remainder of the project. EnAS rewiring and restorative maintenance work were nearly finalized before the lockdown announcement. Project goals switched from the physical AFoF setup in the workshop to a wholly virtual environment. The scope for Visual Components as visualization as a Digital Twin changed to visualization and simulation. In Visual Components products are traced throughout the production process which is an important aspect when it comes to manufacturing.
Objectives
The main objective for this year's project was to continue the contribution to the "Aalto Factory of the Future" (AFoF) initiative. More specifically our objectives were:
Software
- Develop the NXT Studio implementation following IEC61499 standard
- Develop Skill profiles and the Skill server
- Design a digital twin in Visual Components visualization, emulating what is happening on the factory floor
Hardware*
- Reanimate the setup (EnAS & Robotino)
- Set up network of Raspberry Pis for Skills and Skill server
- Mobility of Milvus SEIT100 and manipulation of IRB14000 YuMi
*Progress on the hardware side got cut off by restrictions to the workshop due to the Covid-19 pandemic as of week 11. After which the Visual Components digital twin became the main simulation for the EnAS production unit and related robots.
Media
Results
Initially the project evolved around the physical flexible factory platform EnAS situated in the AFoF workshop, but after the Covid-19 pandemic the project evolved into a purely virtual venture. This brought a lot of changes, largest of which is the importance of visualization in Visual Components. The Visual Components visualization now also acts as a simulation of the EnAS and mobile robots.
Through the development of Skill profiles, Skill server, NXT Studio control and OPC UA server, more proactive production control. The flexibility is expressed in this project through the production scenarios achieved in simulation while simultaneously tracking events through logging. Future work could be to implement our work shown here on the actual AFoF hardware
The source code of the project is also available at the following repository :
https://version.aalto.fi/gitlab/afof/tracing-products