DAEDALUS AND industrial automation
Applying CPS to the manufacturing process automation through virtualized intelligence. The DAEDALUS project is a completely distributed automation platform based on the IEC-61499 standard.
European leadership and excellence in manufacturing are being significantly threatened by the huge economic crisis that hit the Western countries over the last years. In such context, DAEDALUS is the European initiative to cherish the value of the manufacturing sector through the optimization of production processes.
An optimized production process makes it possible to keep te pace of ever-changing market conditions, building a strong, yet flexible structure for recovey activities and innovating the European competitive landscape.
An essential ingredient for a winning innovation path is a more aware and widespread use of ICT in manufacturing-related processes. That’s where DAEDALUS comes into play as the best ally in navigating such an intricate labyrinth of variables and incognitas.
DAEDALUS is simulation applied to digital automation
Name of project
DAEDALUS – Distributed control and simulAtion platform to support an Ecosystem of DygitAL aUtomation developerS.
Duration:
36 month
Years:
2016-2019
Target markets:
Industry Automation, manufacturing
Partners:
nxtControl, Synesis, Jetter, Bluebotics, Luleå Tekniska Universitet, Libelium, Istituto di Tecnologie Industriali e Automazione SUPSI University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland, Technology Transfer System, HMS, OWL Solutions, Schunk, QB Robotics , Spindox UK
Funding:
European Commission EC
OUR SOLUTION
This CPS (“Cyber-Physical Systems”) solution is based on real-time distributed intelligence, enhanced by functional extensions into the Cloud. This leads to a new, information-driven automation infrastructure, where the traditional hierarchical view of a factory functional architecture is complemented by a direct access to the on-board services (non-real-time) exposed by the Cyber-Physical manufacturing system, orchestrated in complex behaviours.
Financed by the European Commission, Daedalus is conceived to enable the full exploitation of the CPS concept of virtualized intelligence, through the adoption of a completely distributed automation platform based on the IEC-61499 standard.
As CPS intrinsic existence defies the concept of rigid hierarchical levels (as CPS are capable of complex functions across all layers), DEMETO orchestrates them in real-time through the IEC-61499 automation language. It does so to achieve complex and optimized behaviours of CPS, while still being singularly and directly accessible, at runtime, by whatever elements of the factory ICT infrastructure that wants to leverage on their internal functionalities.
THE ADVANTAGES
The DAEDALUS project for the optimization of the supply chain through CPS has the potential of revolutionizing the production process and enhancing the competitivity of the European manufacturing with a series of benefits:
- THE AUTOMATION OF THE FUTURE: to give rise to a new generation of service-based industrial automation systems, whose local intelligence can be dynamically linked to runtime functionalities residing in-Cloud;
- FACTORY AUTOMATION: this innovative approach to the way of conceiving automating intelligence within a factory makes it possible to span automation across the boundaries of its physically separated functional areas thanks to the constant and bidirectional connection to the cyber world. This enables the revolution of the industrial automation paradigm;
- COMPETITIVE TRANSFORMATION: DAEDALUS enables the orchestration and automation of the production process in the manufacturing sector. This implies the development of technologies and infrastructures able to cover vast amounts of interdisciplinary tasks.
- THE DIGITAL ECOSYSTEMS MARKET: the creation of a Digital Ecosystem goes beyond the current limits of manufacturing control systems. This identifies a potential market in constant growth and precisely focused on innovative solutions for the design, the engineering, the execution and the maintenance of the plant’s automation process.