This paper addresses the problem of abstracting from diverse field bus technologies towards a function-related, generic interface. Such an abstraction is required by several applications as Plant ...Asset Management solutions. The abstraction methodology presented here relies on the usage of device descriptions to grant a generic access to field bus data. For this purpose, data types contained in diverse device description technologies are mapped to a generic type. Furthermore access methods get mapped towards a generic interface. The abstraction is defined based on the functionality of the devices, but leaves devices and communication systems unchanged. The exact methodology is described for EDD and EDS.
The digital revolution in industry, buildings, and the Internet of Things will massively increase the number of sensor, actuator, and control devices in the near future. This will lead to the further ...automation of many tasks in the life cycle of the systems from design to commissioning and operation. Device and system models are a key enabler in this goal as they provide a holistic information pool that can be utilized by various tools and users along the life cycle. This paper analyzes the current state of the art of device and system models. It looks across different domains from industrial automation to building automation and sensor networks, defines the common tasks in their life cycle, and classifies the information required to execute and automate them. It compares 24 common device modeling approaches against these requirements and unveils how ready they are for the future and what they lack.
One of the key ideas of Industry 4.0 is the availability of a digital representation of each industrial asset within an Industry 4.0 network, the "Asset Administration Shell" (AAS). The AAS combines ...data related to an asset and software interfaces which provide access and explorability of the asset data in the network. Because an accepted standard is missing, component manufacturers are currently not able to economically release basic asset models for their products. This creates a deadlock situation for the widespread introduction of Industry 4.0 driven smart factory concepts. This paper describes and compares the most promising approaches to model the asset administration shell: the AAS model of the Platform I4.0, and the AutomationML component description of the AutomationML e.V. The technical concepts are comparatively analyzed for strengths and weaknesses and a useful combination of both model worlds is proposed.
The Internet of Things is a natural continuity of the Ambient Intelligence where smart and ambient environments are built by integrating a large number of interconnected smart objects with ...heterogeneous capabilities abstracted as software services. The aim is to design cross-domain applications that compose and select most relevant services, which best match user requirements and closely meet the specified quality-of-service level. However, semantic description and representation of such smart devices, including their hosted services and their provided real world data, is still a challenging issue. Semantic Web technologies are seen as a promising tool for this purpose. Indeed, applying these technologies in the Internet of Things enables smart objects to efficiently share their data, exchange their services and cooperate to better satisfy both functional and non-functional user requirements. In this paper, we propose a new semantic model for smart objects description and users request resolution using ontological techniques combined with description logics. Such a model facilitates intelligent functions, including reasoning over service data and semantic interoperability enabling among devices. A case study for smart environment monitoring has been proposed to illustrate the effectiveness and usability of our approach.
To simplify the engineering of field devices, almost every fieldbus organization has developed its own Device Description Language (DDL), a formal language to describe the services and configuration ...options of field devices. The DDLs are usually tailored to the needs of the associated fieldbus engineering tool chain and unusable in tool chains of other vendors or in tools for other lifecycle phases. This paper describes a generic approach to overcome these shortcomings by means of AutomationML and provides an example for IO-Link masters and devices. The proposed method is generic and re-usable for other DDLs.
The German project “Industrie 4.0” requests for new concepts which fulfill the requirements of digital based production. One of these
concepts is the industry 4.0 component (I40 component). This ...paper describes the architecture and application fields of I40
components. It is shown how device description technology is used to build an I40 component. This is a solid basis to integrate
automation devices in I40 systems.
Development of graphical user interfaces for flexible automation systems is a tedious and pricy process. Changes in a plant assembly need to be applied separately to any referring graphical user ...interface. Device integration technologies, such as Electronic Device Description Language and Field Device Tool/Device Type Manager, allow integrating field devices and create an initial graphical user interface but undergo several restrictions such as platform-dependency and the need to manually adapt configuration and integration processes of field devices. We therefore present a novel approach of platform-independent device integration and automated generation of graphical user interfaces. Furthermore, we employ Radio Frequency Identification technology to overcome communication restrictions of field devices in order to transmit a device specific ID, facilitating automated device integration.
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