Control of robots and machine tools with an extended factory cloud

Abstract

This paper describes our concept for control of robots and machine tools through a private factory cloud which is dynamically extended by additional public resources. After discussing the opportunities and drawbacks of the virtualization of robot controllers (RC) and software programmable logic controllers (soft-PLC), we present first experiences with the setup of private and public infrastructures. Finally, we introduce our experimental design for investigating the requirements of machine control algorithms regarding availability, dependability and realtime capability in local and public configurations.978-1-4799-8244-8/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE

Low-Level Control of 3D Printers from the Cloud: A Step toward 3D Printer Control as a Service

“…The solutions to QoS issues presented in the discussed preliminary studies have yielded encouraging results: they have generally demonstrated that, with proper mitigation of QoS issues, cloud-based controllers can approach the performance of equivalent local controllers. However, the aspiration of CaaS is for cloud-based controllers to surpass the Cloud-based control in the context of CaaS seeks to perform low-level computations for real-time control of a device in the Cloud, instead of on a local controller [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. In the specific case of 3D printers, this implies that stepper motor commands (or similar low-level signals) are computed in and sent out from the cloud-based controller, as opposed to G-codes (see Figure 1b).…”

“…Moreover, in CaaS, a variety of control algorithms could be offered in an "app marketplace", where they are accessed if and when needed by a given device. For more details on the various benefits of CaaS, see [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16].…”

Towards In-Network Industrial Feedback Control

“…In industry, these processes are at the core of robotic automation but they carry through all aspects of modern production. However, driven by increased demands in flexibility and manageability of production sites, control theory is evaluating the softwarization of their field, i.e., the outsourcing of highly localized control processes to general purpose cloud environments [20,21,23,24]. In that regard, control e.g., hopes to utilize the elastic computing and storage of cloud environments to synthesize advanced controllers, e.g., accounting for wear and tear of machinery through constant collection of sensory data and the application of machine learning.…”

Low-Level Control of 3D Printers from the Cloud:  A Step Toward 3D Printer Control as a Service

“…Therefore, such wireless host platforms do not offer CaaS, at least not in the context discussed in this paper. Cloud-based control in the context of CaaS seeks to perform low-level computations for realtime control of a device in the Cloud, instead of on a local controller [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. In the specific case of 3D printers, this implies that stepper motor commands (or similar low-level signals) are computed in and sent out from the cloud-based controller, as opposed to G-codes (see Figure 1 (b)).…”

“…Moreover, in CaaS, a variety of control algorithms could be offered in an "app marketplace," where they are accessed if and when needed by a given device. For more details on the various benefits of CaaS, see [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16].…”