ESI demo factory
The ESI demo factory is the basis for demonstrators of ESI tools and methodologies. It consists of a physical factory, the FischerTechnik platform, and a digital factory, a corresponding 3D virtual model.
For ESI it serves following purposes:
showcase our methodologies and tools to potential customers and partners
use as an open platform in our research to demonstrate the generic value of our ESI methodologies and tools
show how the ESI mission is supported by the collection of ESI methodologies and tools
Figure 1: TNO-ESI demo factory: the physical model
The main features of the demo factory are
It has elements that we also see in high-tech systems e.g, a pick & place arm, warehouse module, sensors, and industry-grade PLC modules
It is a simplified version of the complex systems we target with our tools and methodologies but still has sufficient complexity to show the value of our innovations
The factory consists of 4 processing stations which are displayed in figure 1.
Technical set-up
Both the physical factory and digital factory share the same Interface Hardware Abstraction Layer (IHAL) interface. This interface is made accessible via the OPC-UA industry standard. The factory can be manually operated using an OPC-UA client that provides a human-machine interface. A supervisory controller can be used to autonomously operate the factory. The ESI tools also interface with the platform via this IHAL interface. Testing infrastructure is available while prototyping to validate new solutions.
Figure 3: Technical set-up TNO-ESI demo factory
The 3D virtual model and low-level control software were developed by our implementation partner ICT-Strypes.