Search

Modern robots often use more than one processing unit to solve the requirements in robotics. Robots are frequently designed in a modular manner to fulfill the possibility to be extended for future tasks. The use of multiple processing units leads to a distributed system within one single robot. Therefore, the system architecture is even more important than in single-computer robots. The presented concept of a modular and distributed system architecture was designed for robotic systems. The architecture is based on the Operator&ndash, Controller Module (OCM). This article describes the adaption of the distributed OCM for mobile robots considering the requirements on such robots, including, for example, real-time and safety constraints. The presented architecture splits the system hierarchically into a three-layer structure of controllers and operators. The controllers interact directly with all sensors and actuators within the system. For that reason, hard real-time constraints need to comply. The reflective operator, however, processes the information of the controllers, which can be done by model-based principles using state machines. The cognitive operator is used to optimize the system. The article also shows the exemplary design of the DAEbot, a self-developed robot, and discusses the experience of applying these concepts on this robot.

Truck platooning for which multiple trucks follow at a short distance is considered a near-Term truck automation opportunity, with the potential to reduce fuel consumption. Short following distances and increasing automation make it hard for a driver to be the backup if the system fails. The EcoTwin consortium successfully demonstrated a two truck platooning system with trucks following at 20 meters distance at the public road, in which the driver is the backup. The ambition of the consortium is to increase the truck automation and to reduce the following distance, which requires a new fail-operational truck platooning architecture. This paper presents a level 2+ platooning system architecture, which is fail-operational for a single failure, and the corresponding process to obtain it. First insights in the existing two truck platooning system are obtained by analyzing its key aspects, being utilization, latency, reliability, and safety. Using these insights, candidate level 2+ platooning system architectures are defined from which the most suitable truck platooning architecture is selected. Future work is the design and implementation of a prototype, based on the presented level 2+ platooning system architecture.

Truck platooning for which multiple trucks follow at a short distance is considered a near-Term truck automation opportunity, with the potential to reduce fuel consumption. Short following distances and increasing automation make it hard for a driver to be the backup if the system fails. The EcoTwin consortium successfully demonstrated a two truck platooning system with trucks following at 20 meters distance at the public road, in which the driver is the backup. The ambition of the consortium is to increase the truck automation and to reduce the following distance, which requires a new fail-operational truck platooning architecture. This paper presents a level 2+ platooning system architecture, which is fail-operational for a single failure, and the corresponding process to obtain it. First insights in the existing two truck platooning system are obtained by analyzing its key aspects, being utilization, latency, reliability, and safety. Using these insights, candidate level 2+ platooning system architectures are defined from which the most suitable truck platooning architecture is selected. Future work is the design and implementation of a prototype, based on the presented level 2+ platooning system architecture.

International audience; Socio-technical systems are increasingly becoming software-intensive. The challenge now is to design the architecture of such software-intensive systems for guaranteeing not only its correctness, but also the correctness of its implementation. In social-technical systems, the architecture (including software and physical elements) is described in terms of Piping and Instrumentation Diagrams (P&ID). The design of these P&ID is still considered an art for which no rigorous design support exists. In order to detect and eliminate architectural design flaws, this paper proposes a formal-based automated approach for the verification of the essential architecture “total correctness” properties, i.e. compatibility, completeness, consistency, and correctness. This approach is based on the definition of an architectural style for P&ID design in Alloy. We use MDE to automatically generate Alloy models from a P&ID and check their compatibility with the style and its completeness, consistency, and correctness properties. Our approach is presented through an industrial case study: the system of storage and production of freshwater for a ship.

Conference of 21st IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation, ETFA 2016 ; Conference Date: 6 September 2016 Through 9 September 2016; Conference Code:124646; International audience; Automated manufacturing systems are becoming increasingly flexible in order to support a growing number of different products and product variations, as well as shortening lot sizes and product life cycles. Many manufacturing resource are already multi-purpose. But they are integrated in an automation infrastructure that may require significant effort to adapt. In this contribution, we present a system architecture for the deployment of software functionality to manufacturing resources safely at runtime. The architecture integrates software model verification to ensure the integrity of new functionality, software-defined networking (SDN) to establish new communication pathways for collaboration, and the close interaction between a flexible runtime execution environment and its safety-critical counterpart.

In this paper we discuss the beginnings of an attempt to define and analyze the stability of an entire modular robotic system architecture - one which includes a three-tier (3T) layer breakdown of capabilities, with symbolic, deterministic planning at the highest level. We approach the problem from the standpoint of a control theory outlook, and try to formalize the issues that result from trying to quantitatively characterize the overall performance of a well-defined system without a need for exhaustive testing. We start by discussing the concept of bounded-input bounded-output stability, giving examples where the technique might not be sufficient to guarantee what we term “total system stability” due to complications associated with the levels of abstraction between the modules and components that are being chained together in the architecture. We then go on to discuss necessary conditions that may fall out of this naturally as a result. We further try to better-define the input and output constraints needed to guarantee total system stability, using an assumption-guarantee-like contractual framework that sits alongside the architecture; the requirements then may have influence across multiple modules, in order to keep consistency. We also discuss how the structure of the architectural modules may help or hinder the process of capability characterization and performance analysis of each module and a given architecture configuration as a whole. We then discuss two overlapping methods that, combined, should allow us to analyze the effectiveness of the architecture, and help towards verification and validation of both the components and the system as a whole. Demonstrative examples are given using a specific architectural implementation called the Resilient Spacecraft Executive. In future work, we hope to define both necessary and sufficient conditions for total system stability across such a system architecture for robotics use. Not duplicate with DiVA 1502066QC 20170216

The EU funded collaborative research project STREAMER aims on Energy-efficient Buildings (EeB), focusing on mixed-use healthcare districts. Besides innovations in EeB technology, special emphasis is laid on improving methodologies and tools used in the design process of new or retrofitted hospital buildings. STREAMER follows a model-based, holistic approach by integrating design data on both building and district level.Advanced ICT methods like Semantic Web, Ontologies, Parametric Modelling or Knowledge Based Systems, will be reviewed, adapted, and improved to use them during the energy-efficient-buildings design process. The project not only aims on developing theoretical concepts, but also on practical case studies: based on already existing software, a number of interoperable software tools shall be developed and evaluated in four demonstration projects. The paper describes the system architecture and provides a functional spectrum of the design tools, focusing on interoperability issues. © 2015 Taylor & Francis Group.

ISBN 9781138027107uuid:9c919eb9-2c77-403c-8505-956b296df2e4; International audience; The EU funded collaborative research project STREAMER aims on Energy-efficient Buildings (EeB), focusing on mixed-use healthcare districts. Besides innovations in EeB technology, special emphasis is laid on improving methodologies and tools used in the design process of new or retrofitted hospital buildings. STREAMER follows a model-based, holistic approach by integrating design data on both building and district level.Advanced ICT methods like Semantic Web, Ontologies, Parametric Modelling or Knowledge Based Systems, will be reviewed, adapted, and improved to use them during the energy-efficient-buildings design process. The project not only aims on developing theoretical concepts, but also on practical case studies: based on already existing software, a number of interoperable software tools shall be developed and evaluated in four demonstration projects. The paper describes the system architecture and provides a functional spectrum of the design tools, focusing on interoperability issues.

Conference of 2013 8th International Conference on P2P, Parallel, Grid, Cloud and Internet Computing, 3PGCIC 2013 ; Conference Date: 28 October 2013 Through 30 October 2013; Conference Code:102403; International audience; This paper presents a full system architecture allowing the authentication and secured execution of binary files using hardware-assisted on-the-fly memory encryption/decryption. In a context of general blurring of the physical relationship between a user and the computer which which it eventually interacts, this architecture has been thought so as to achieve a certain degree of robustness against corruptions in a cloud computing IaaS software stack, including when the corruptions may come from the lowest hypervision layer.