Specification and design of an industrial manufacturing middleware

Abstract

The European innovation project PERFoRM (Production harmonizEd Reconfiguration of Flexible Robots and Machinery) is aiming for a harmonized integration of research results in the area of flexible and reconfigurable manufacturing systems. Based on the cyber-physical system (CPS) paradigm, existing technologies and concepts are researched and integrated in an architecture which is enabling the application of these new technologies in real industrial environments. To implement such a flexible cyber-physical system, one of the core requirements for each involved component is a harmonized communication, which enables the capability to collaborate with each other in an intelligent way. But especially when integrating multiple already existing production components into such a cyber-physical system, one of the major issues is to deal with the various communication protocols and data representations coming with each individual cyber-physical component. To tackle this issue, the solution foreseen within PERFoRM's architecture is to use an integration platform, the PERFoRM Industrial Manufacturing Middleware, to enable all connected components to interact with each other through the Middleware and without having to implement new interfaces for each. This paper describes the basic requirements of such a Middleware and how it fits into the PERFoRM architecture and gives an overview about the internal design and functionality.