Model-integrated mechatronics - toward a new paradigm in the development of manufacturing systems

The traditional approach for the development of manufacturing systems considers the constituent parts of the system, i.e., mechanical, electronic, and software, to be developed independently and then integrated to form the final system. This approach is being criticized as inappropriate for the complexity and the dynamics of today's systems. This paper proposes an architecture that promotes model integration not only for implementation space artifacts but also in artifacts of the early analysis and design phases of the development process. The proposed architecture, which promotes reuse and significantly decreases development and validation time, is at the heart of a new paradigm called model-integrated mechatronics (MIM). MIM applies domain-specific modeling languages for the concurrent engineering of mechanical, electronic and software components of mechatronic systems. It simplifies the integrated development process of manufacturing systems by using as basic construct the mechatronic component. The MIM paradigm was utilized to define "Archimedes," a system platform that supports the engineer through a methodology, a framework, and a set of tools to automate the development process of agile mechatronic manufacturing systems.     

A knowledge-based framework for complex, proactive and service-oriented e-negotiation systems

Advances in information technology and knowledge management change the way that e-negotiations, which constitute an important aspect of worldwide e-trading, can be structured and represented. In this paper, a novel approach that focuses on knowledge modeling, formalization, representation and management in the domain of e-negotiation is described. The proposed approach exploits Ontologies, Service Oriented Architectures, Semantic Web Services, software agent platforms, and Knowledge-Bases to construct a framework that favors dynamically adapted negotiation protocols, negotiation process visualization and management, modeling and preference elicitation of the negotiated object and automatic deployment of negotiation interfaces. Negotiation process, protocol and strategy are examined, and a hybrid approach that integrates rules and workflow diagrams to describe and represent them is introduced.     

Developing a CASE tool for distributed control applications

The function block (FB) concept has been adopted by recent International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) standards to define a methodology for the development of modular, re-usable, open, and vendor-independent distributed control applications. Control engineers are already familiar with the FB construct, and field devices and fieldbuses are expected to be compliant with this approach in the near future. New generation FB-oriented CASE tools are required to support the whole development process. This paper presents an approach to the design and development of an IEC-compliant CASE tool (ICT). The proposed approach is based on a four-layer architecture that successfully unifies the FB concept with the Unified Modelling Language. During the development of our prototype ICT, this architecture proved to be very significant for the identification of the key abstractions that the ICT must provide as building blocks of its various diagrams used during the modelling process of control systems.     

Transformation of Function Block Diagrams to UPPAAL timed automata for the verification of safety applications

Verification of IEC 61131-3 based safety applications is a challenge in the industrial automation domain. In this paper, the transformation of FBD diagrams to UPPAAL formal models was adopted to address this challenge. A set of transformation rules are defined for the automatic transformation of IEC 61131-3 Function Block based safety applications to UPPAAL timed automata models. These models are next used for the verification of the safety application. Both the source and the target domain models have been formally defined and these definitions are used for the definition of the transformation rules. Based on this a prototype model transformer was developed using Java. The transformer was used with various safety applications to check the efficiency of the transformation process. A laboratory system is presented as a case study to highlight the proposed approach.     

Model driven development of distributed control applications

Control systems rely heavily on the software that is used to implement them. However, current trends in software engineering are not fully exploited in the development process of complex control systems. In this paper, an approach for the model driven development of distributed control systems (DCSs) is presented. The proposed approach that greatly simplifies the development process adopts the function block construct introduced by the IEC 61499 standard and supports the automatic generation of implementation models for many different execution environments. It favours the deployment and re-deployment of distributed control applications and provides an infrastructure for the transparent exploitation of current software engineering practices. GME, a meta-modelling tool, was utilized to develop Archimedes, an IEC-compliant prototype engineering support system. Specific model-to-model transformers have been developed to automate the transformation of FB-based design models to CORBA-component-model based implementation models to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed approach.     

Service Acquisition for Mobile Users in Future Internet

Mobility offers a great deal of advantages. However, mobile users are currently restricted by the network coverage of providers, their access network technologies and the networking capabilities of mobile devices. Moreover, mobile users have to be involved in time consuming and inflexible manual interactions with internet access service providers in order to sign long term contracts. In this paper, a novel framework, which liberates mobile users from predefined, long-term contracts, is presented. This framework enables mobile users to dynamically acquire any kind of Internet Service, irrespectively of their location and the mobile device used. This is based on the automation of the service acquisition process and the collaboration of providers that is required to satisfy end-users’ requests. The flexible communication and negotiation framework that was defined enables automated negotiations between all parties and can be used as basis towards automated service acquisition for mobile users in future internet.