The application of an intersectoral reconfigurable manufacturing automation testbed to provide an automation solution to industry

Abstract

In this work, we present the latest results in the development of a generic manufacturing automation testbed, that is being carried out in our laboratory. The testbed is highly reconfigurable in nature, and, unlike other reconfigurable automation systems found in the literature, is able to cater for the development of automation solutions for a wide variety of parts that do not belong to the same part family, or even to the same manufacturing sector. The testbed is intended to be used as a shared resource by a geographically-close cluster of diverse manufacturing companies. We present new detailed results on the design, selection, construction and/or procurement of specific off-the-shelf, reconfigurable and/or flexible components that form part of the system. We then focus on the application of our testbed to provide an automation solution in a real industrial test case, with an emphasis on how the generic resources of the testbed can be applied to the development of a very specific solution, and on how the specific solution itself contributes to the continued development and upgrading of the testbed.