Agent-based, hybrid control architecture for optimized and flexible production scheduling and control in remanufacturing

in Journal of Remanufacturing (2020), (2020),

Introduction: Motivated by high ecological and economical potentials and driven by new laws, remanufacturing is receiving increasing attention as a process that puts used products into “as good as new or ... [more ▼]

Introduction: Motivated by high ecological and economical potentials and driven by new laws, remanufacturing is receiving increasing attention as a process that puts used products into “as good as new or better” condition. Within this process, there are many challenges, which are unseen in manufacturing, such as the uncertainties resulting from unknown conditions of the used products. This places special demands on the control of the remanufacturing system (RS). Methodology: To handle these uncertainties an agent-based hybrid control architecture comprising centralized and decentralized components is presented. In the former, the scheduling takes place including the consideration of the use of automated guided vehicles (AGV) to realize flexible material handling within the RS. The scheduling of machines and AGVs is thereby considered simultaneously and not separately, as it is the case in currently available control systems. For the optimization of the simultaneous scheduling Constraint Programming (CP) is used. In the decentralized component, all participants within the RS will be networked as a cyber-physical system and controlled by respective agents. These agents can communicate with each other in order to find solutions. The architecture is implemented as a multi-agent system. Results: Simulation results, using benchmark instances, show that simultaneous scheduling results in a 19.7% reduction of the makespan. Furthermore, the CP-based approach delivers the best results, compared to other approaches for simultaneous scheduling, which are also achieved in a significantly shorter computing time. [less ▲]

Mensch-Roboter-Kollaboration in der Domäne Refabrikation – State-of-the-Art und Ausblick

in Jäkel, Jens; Thiel, Robert (Eds.) Tagungsband AALE 2020 Automatisierung und Mensch-Technik-Interaktion (2020, March 05)

Optimized and flexible scheduling of AGVs and process machines in Re- manufacturing 4 .0 Systems using multi-agent technology and simultaneous scheduling

in Ramírez Fernández, Francisco Javier; Honrubia Escribano, Andrés (Eds.) Abstracts III International Workshop on Autonomous Remanufacturing 2019 (2019, October 02)

In remanufacturing processes the condition of the used products is unknown. This leads to many challenges which are special to the domain of remanufacturing and not known from manufacturing. One of these ... [more ▼]

In remanufacturing processes the condition of the used products is unknown. This leads to many challenges which are special to the domain of remanufacturing and not known from manufacturing. One of these challenges is the stochastic routing of products based on the unknown product conditions. This problem in particular requires a flexible scheduling and control system for the remanufacturing system as well as the intralogistics. The aim of this research is to optimize the scheduling and control of remanufacturing systems considering the flexible material transport by AGVs. Therefore the networking of all resources is organized as an embedded system treating the remanufacturing system as a cyber-physical system in the context of industry 4.0. The scheduling and control of the remanufacturing system will be achieved by a combination of multi-agent technology to deal with unexpected events and the optimization of the schedule by simultaneous scheduling of machines and AGVs. Machine scheduling and transport scheduling have been vastly studied by many researchers, but most of the works address both problems separately. However, these two problems are closely linked and influence each other. By looking at them together, it is possible to achieve an improvement in the overall schedule. In the first step of the research work, the simultaneous scheduling of machines and AGVs has been compared with the currently used sequential scheduling within a simulation study. For this purpose, benchmark instances known in the literature were used. The simulation results show the superiority of the simultaneous scheduling of machines and AGVs. [less ▲]

A survey: Scheduling of Automated Guided Vehicles in Flexible (Re-)Manufacturing Systems

in Müller, Rainer; Brüls, Oliver; Abba, Gabriel (Eds.) et al Robotix-Academy Conference for Industrial Robotics (RACIR) 2019 (2019, June)

This work gives a state-of-the-art overview regarding the scheduling of Automated Guided Vehicles (AGV) in Flexible (Re-)Manufacturing Systems (FMS/FRMS). Different, general approaches are available to ... [more ▼]

This work gives a state-of-the-art overview regarding the scheduling of Automated Guided Vehicles (AGV) in Flexible (Re-)Manufacturing Systems (FMS/FRMS). Different, general approaches are available to solve this task. In this regard an overview of currently available fleet management software and research in this field as well as the simultaneous scheduling of machines and AGVs is given. Production scheduling and transport scheduling have been vastly studied by many researchers, but most of the works address these both problems separately. However, these two problems are closely linked and influence each other. By looking at them together, it is possible to achieve an improvement in the overall scheduling. The different works are examined regarding the consideration of one available machine for each tasks, or if alternative machines are available and if the approaches are static or dynamic. Especially the appropriability of the presented works regarding the use in remanufacturing systems is examined. Remanufacturing is a process for used products to make them “as good as new or better”. Due to unknown condition of the used products many challenges occur during the remanufacturing process which are special to the domain of remanufacturing and not know from manufacturing. The resulting stochastic routing of products and material in particular places special demands on the flexibility and dynamic of the scheduling and control of the remanufacturing system. In order to meet the challenges of a real remanufacturing system, the scheduling algorithm should consider alternative machines as well as be dynamic. None of the approaches examined can meet these requirements, which is why new methods have to be developed. [less ▲]

Mensch-Roboter-Kollaboration für Demontageprozesse

in Smajic, Hasan (Ed.) AALE 2018 Das Forum für Fachleute der Automatisierungstechnik aus Hochschulen und Wirtscha 15. Fachkonferenz (2018, March 02)

Die Refabrikation gebrauchter Bauteile erlaubt eine erhebliche Einsparung von Rohstoffen, Energie und Kosten. Der hohe Anteil an manueller Arbeit im Refabrikationsschritt Demontage verringert allerdings ... [more ▼]

Die Refabrikation gebrauchter Bauteile erlaubt eine erhebliche Einsparung von Rohstoffen, Energie und Kosten. Der hohe Anteil an manueller Arbeit im Refabrikationsschritt Demontage verringert allerdings die Wirtschaftlichkeit. Dadurch wird die Implementierung der Refabrikati-on im industriellen Umfeld oftmals verhindert. Die Vollautomatisierung des Demontagepro-zesses ist aufgrund der Komplexität und der damit verbundenen Kosten, in vielen Fällen nicht umsetzbar. Hier bietet die Zusammenarbeit zwischen Mensch und Roboter einen vielverspre-chenden Ansatz zur Erhöhung der Prozesseffizienz. Bei einer Zusammenarbeit zwischen Mensch und Roboter spielt deren Interaktion und Kommunikation eine zentrale Rolle. In dieser Arbeit wird deshalb vorgestellt, welche Interaktionsrollen der Mensch in einem Demon-tageprozess einnehmen kann, welche Kommunikationskanäle sich zur Informationsübertra-gung eignen und wie diese in einer Demontageapplikation umgesetzt werden können. Bei dieser Applikation wird die Demontage einer Zusatzkühlmittelpumpe aus dem Automobilbe-reich, mit Hilfe einer agentenbasierten Steuerung vorgestellt. Dazu wurden einige neue Interaktionsformen Mensch-Roboter entwickelt, die den geplanten kollaborativen Einsatz erleichtern sollen. [less ▲]

Combining Virtual and Robot Assistants - A Case Study about Integrating Amazon's Alexa as a Voice Interface in Robotics

in Müller, Rainer; Plapper, Peter; Brüls, Oliver (Eds.) et al Robotix-Academy Conference for Industrial Robotics (RACIR) 2018 (2018)

Virtual assistants such as Alexa, Siri, Cortana and Google Assistant increasingly find ways to enter our homes and everyday lives, where they serve as powerful human-machine interfaces to control devices ... [more ▼]

Virtual assistants such as Alexa, Siri, Cortana and Google Assistant increasingly find ways to enter our homes and everyday lives, where they serve as powerful human-machine interfaces to control devices through natural language. In this work, we explore the use of virtual assistants to control single components within an intelligent industrial robot assistant system for disassembly applications. Following a short introduction and an overview of commercially available virtual assistants, we present our system architecture, which integrates Amazon's Alexa through an Echo Dot device. Utilizing the Alexa Skill Kit, we build a voice user interface that contains dialogs to control various device functions and assistive system behaviors. By connecting Alexa Voice Service with Amazon’s Lambda and IoT web services, we can parametrize machine commands depending on the user's voice input and, through a Raspberry Pi, which routes messages between the internet and decoupled machine network, send them to the devices within the intelligent robot assistance system. With the reversed communication flow, we can update and store the current state of the devices in the Amazon Web Services IoT Shadow. Utilizing the IoT Shadow, we are able to inform the user upon request about the current state of the devices by synthesize speech with the Alexa Voice Services and vocalize it through the Echo Dot. One implemented assistive system behavior and the related dialog to activate the behavior is further explained in this work. In the conclusion, we address our gathered positive and negative experience to date. [less ▲]

Robotix-Academy Conference for Industrial Robotics (RACIR) 2017

Book published by Shaker Verlag - 1st ed (2017)

An intelligent agent-controlled and robot-based disassembly assistant

in Conference Proceedings on the 2nd International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Robotics ( ICAIR 2017) (2017)

One key for successful and fluent human-robot-collaboration in disassembly processes is equipping the robot system with higher autonomy and intelligence. In this paper, we present an informed software ... [more ▼]

One key for successful and fluent human-robot-collaboration in disassembly processes is equipping the robot system with higher autonomy and intelligence. In this paper, we present an informed software agent that controls the robot behavior to form an intelligent robot assistant for disassembly purposes. While the disassembly process first depends on the product structure, we inform the agent using a generic approach through product models. The product model is then transformed to a directed graph and used to build, share and define a coarse disassembly plan. To refine the workflow, we formulate “the problem of loosening a connection and the distribution of the work” as a search problem. The created detailed plan consists of a sequence of actions that are used to call, parametrize and execute robot programs for the fulfillment of the assistance. The aim of this research is to equip robot systems with knowledge and skills to allow them to be autonomous in the performance of their assistance to finally improve the ergonomics of disassembly workstations. [less ▲]