From cloud manufacturing to cloud–edge collaborative manufacturing

Abstract

In recent years, the rapid development of information technology represented by the new generation of artificial intelligence has brought unprecedented impacts, challenges, and opportunities to the transformation of the manufacturing industry and the evolution of manufacturing models. In the past decade, a variety of new manufacturing systems and models have been proposed, with cloud manufacturing being one such representative manufacturing system. In this study, the overall research progress and existing key scientific issues in cloud manufacturing are analyzed. Combining with current cloud–edge collaboration, digital twin, edge computing, and other technologies, a deeply integrated human–machine–object manufacturing system based on cloud–edge collaboration is proposed. We call it cloud-edge collaborative manufacturing (CeCM). The similarities and differences between cloud-edge collaborative manufacturing with cloud manufacturing are analyzed from the system architecture level. The cloud-edge collaborative manufacturing is divided into three major spaces, including a physical reality space, a virtual resource space, and a cloud service space. Based on the above division, a five-layer architecture for cloud-edge collaborative manufacturing is proposed, including a manufacturing resource perception layer, an edge application service layer, a cloud–edge collaboration layer, a cloud–edge service layer, and a cloud–edge application layer. All the layers build a manufacturing system that deeply integrates manufacturing resources, computer systems, and humans, machines, and objects. Its overall system operation process is explained based on the above architecture design, and its 12 types of collaboration features of cloud–edge collaborative manufacturing are explained. In this paper, we also summarize 5 categories of key technology systems for cloud-edge collaborative manufacturing and 21 supporting key technologies. Under the framework of the above, a cloud–edge collaborative manufacturing for 3D printing was developed, and an application scenario for the petroleum equipment field was constructed. In a word, we believe the cloud-edge collaborative manufacturing will offer a new opportunity for the development of manufacturing network, digitalization and intelligence, providing a new technical path for the evolution of cloud manufacturing model and further promoting precision manufacturing services anytime, anywhere, and on demand.