Adaptive Reconfigurable Process and Control Systems
Rapidly progressing development as well as abrupt changes to situations and requirements especially in a production environment are leading to more and more dynamic and complex production systems. Traditional methods and approaches are becoming increasingly inadequate to master them, i.e. for planning, guidance and control. Therefore a change is needed on the technological side away from centrally controlled, often inflexibly coupled production systems to distributed, modular and cooperating mechatronic components and machines. Such systems and machines must therefore be increasingly equipped with the appropriate sensors/actuators and the associated "control intelligence".
A massively higher number of sensors and actuators, which are mostly purchased from different manufacturers as well, inevitably lead to greater complexity of the systems mentioned above, which in part have to fulfil complex guidance and control tasks in the network. In addition, there is the fact that with solutions used today, end-to-end integration and interoperability of the individual devices is only possible to a very limited extent due to different implementations, methods, tools, protocols and interfaces.
Therefore, PROFACTOR is working on innovative control concepts and their implementation for flexible and adaptable production systems in order to meet the requirements described above.
RESEARCH PROJECTS
MEDEIA – Model-driven Embedded Systems Design Environment for the Industrial Automation Sector
The goal of the project is the development a model-based, multi-domain design method and the corresponding tools for embedded control solutions.
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PISA – Flexible Assembly Systems through Work-place Sharing and Time Sharing Human-Machine Cooperation
The goal of the project is the development of intelligent handling and assembly systems as well as cooperating robots (COBOTS) to serve as tools to offload workers in their daily work.
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FRONTICS – Communication Framework for Networked Automation and Control Systems
The automatic configuration of heterogeneous and hybrid (real time) communication networks based on application and hardware descriptions is the focal point of the FRONTICS project.
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4DIAC - Open Source Framework for Distributed Industrial Automation and Control Systems
The project deals with the development and implementation of a runtime system and the associated engineering tools.
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I*PROMS – Innovative Production Machines and Systems
DaThe project focuses on the design and development of future concepts and machines for production technology.
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εCEDAC – Evolution Control Environment for Distributed Automation Componentsns
EnEngineering methods and approaches and their verification for the evolution of distributed automation systems are at the heart of eCEDAC.
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µCrons - Micro Holons for Next Generation Distributed Embedded Automation and Controlol
Distributed control infrastructure for reconfigurable automation systems using mechatronic components are addressed in the µCrons project.
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