Research projects

Data acquisition 

The production of an intelligent product allows for the opportunity to acquire data while the assembly is still ongoing. For example, acceleration values can be measured while the product is moved by the industrial robots. This provides different optimization potentials. 

The specific configured MES (Manufacturing Execution System) enables the precise control of individual components of the IoT-Factory. Each module communicates with the MES which results in the opportunity to perform multiple production programs at the same time. 

Ongoing research projects

The ongoing research projects, such as the “Development of prototyped workflows and methods for the IoT-characterized production” provide a great foundation for the research activities around the IoT-Factory. Besides data based factory optimizations and development of methods in the field of prescriptive maintenance, projects around image processing and robot (motion) control can be studied. One of the current research projects is about the camera based order picking with AI algorithms. 

Sensors and data processing

The DA-cluster of the CfADS provides enough computational power to carry out data and computation intensive projects. Each module of the IoT-Factory has multiple sensors to provide various values, for example the energy consumption. Depending on the research field there are other sensors like sensors to measure vibration, acceleration and motion. The number of installed cameras provides images of each part of the production line at each state of the assembly. Several projects in the field of graphical analyzation can be performed with such a high amount of images. 

The installed C6930 Beckhoff IPCs provide all the computation power to perform complex production tasks and the ability to use a wide range of functionality. These functions include processing of images, motion control programs and providing access to the various sensor values. If the power of an IPC is too low the connection to the DA-cluster provides all the additional computational power, you need.

Current product

Each module has at least one RFID Read/Write unit installed. With this unit we know where to find the product at all times. This provides possibilities to optimize the job order to reduce lead times. 

The heart of the product is a circuit board with an ESP8266 which provides WIFI right after the start up and enables multiple services to be used by the MES and other programs to gather live data from within the factory.