Daedalus | Distributed control and simulAtion platform to support an Ecosystem of DigitAL aUtomation developerS

Summary

Daedalus is conceived to enable the full exploitation of the CPS (Cyber Physical System) concept of virtualized intelligence, through the adoption of a completely distributed automation platform based on IEC 61499 standard, fostering the creation of a Digital Ecosystem that could go beyond the current limits of manufacturing control systems and propose an ever-growing market of innovative solutions for the design, engineering, production and maintenance of plants’ automation.

Daedalus proposes the deployment of an Automation Ecosystem for a multi-sided market based on a new generation of distributed intelligent devices (CPS) that, existing both in the real and in the cyber (simulated) world, can be aggregated, orchestrated and re-configured to exhibit complex manufacturing behaviours that optimize the performance of future shop floor. The initiative focuses on key topics for the competitiveness of Europe and its companies, encompassing a variety of interdisciplinary tasks with the objective of deploying a digital platform and multi-sided ecosystem for the industrial automation domain.

More information & hyperlinks
Web resources: http://daedalus.iec61499.eu
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/723248
Start date: 01-10-2016
End date: 30-09-2019
Total budget - Public funding: 5 079 796,00 Euro - 3 994 296,00 Euro
Cordis data

Original description

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 IEC-61499 standard, fostering the creation of a Digital Ecosystem that could go beyond the current limits of manufacturing control systems and propose an ever-growing market of innovative solutions for the design, engineering, production and maintenance of plants’ automation.

The following objectives will be reached:
-)Ease the conception, development and distribution of intelligence into CPS for real-time execution of orchestrated manufacturing tasks;
-)Foster interoperability of CPS from different vendors at orchestration-level (= “between CPS”);
-)Simplify the design, implementation and integration of optimal coordinating control intelligence of CPS;
-)Enable near-real-time co-simulation of manufacturing systems as a fully integrated “service” of a CPS;
-)Create a Digital Marketplace to simplify the matchmaking between offer and demand within the Ecosystem;
-)Conceive a multi-sided business model for the Automation Ecosystem and the corresponding business plans for its Complementors;
-)Foster the widespread acceptance of the Ecosystem platform to guarantee success and impact of Daedalus multi-sided market.

The project approach is based on 3 technological pillars, one platform pillar and a final ecosystem pillar:
1)IEC61499-based reconfigurable automation platform for distributed orchestration of interoperable CPS;
2)“Simulation-as-a-service” for integrated near-real-time co-simulation of CPS behavioural models;
3)Advanced SDKs for simplified design of hierarchically distributed optimal control applications;
4)Digital Marketplace for the creation of an interdependent ecosystem of automation solutions providers;
5)Proof-of-concept showcases to accelerate the involvement of “complementors” and the maturation of the Ecosystem.

Status

CLOSED

Call topic

FOF-11-2016

Update Date

27-10-2022
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Comment: Through the deployment of its European Competence Centre, Daedalus will specifically target this technology transfer issue, both directly (with specific training and involvement initiatives) and indirectly (by linking with relevant training and education institutions, within and without the project boundaries). http://www.synesis-consortium.eu/competence-center/
Comment:
Daedalus developments are based on the only existing international standard for distributed industrial automation, the IEC-61499. The standard already exists in more than one deployed implementations. During the project an open and international standardization action will be coordinated, leading to the creation of a CWA (CEN/CENELEC Workshop Agreement).
Comment: Strong attention will be given to augmenting the auto-binding and auto-configuration functionalities of the IEC-61499 technology with specific security-related mechanisms
Comment: CPS interface: Extension of automation objects to include/interface with behavioral models. HW/SW wrapping of legacy and/or proprietary systems
Comment: IEC-61499 established both a programming language and the rules for open communication protocols for real-time control over distributed applications. Interaction between non real-time and real-time IIoT could be guaranteed through the standard.
Comment: A cross-platform acceptance of IEC-61499 for the real-time control domain for distributed applications guarantees an open and interoperable way of putting together different platform over this specific aspect.
Comment: IEC-61499: Real-time (non strict) and pre-defined topology. Daedalus: Auto-discovery and auto-binding over strict real-time
Comment: Orchestration development framework. IEC 61499: Supervised orchestration of distributed devices. Daedalus: SDK to design optimal distributed control solutions
Comment: Not foreseen for IEC-61499 but possible if performance (over real-time) overhead is acceptable. Within IEC-61499, justified only if industrial requirements exists; the standard accepts the possibility to be extended in this direction. With respect to intefacing to other platfrom, complete openness to implement appropriate software gateways.
Comment: Developing a solution specific for IEC-61499. Open to standardized methods to interface to existing SoA approaches in higher levels of automation.
Comment: Integrating "digital" applications running in other platform into the real-time automation engineering environment is a very interesting use-case
Comment: IEC-61499 is modular and OO in its approach to real-time automation. Moreover, it allows to "encapsulate" interfaces to other platform coherently with this OO approach.
Comment: IEC-61499 is open and interoperable by design. From within IEC-61499, interfaces to other platforms can be developed in C++ to generate specific APIs. Other platforms wanting to interact over an IEC-61499 communication bus can easily implement the protocols without changing their internal programming.
Comment: The whole concept of “orchestrated distributed automation” enabled by IEC-61499 has been structure to sustain scalability, also in face of big data elaboration issues.
Comment: DAEDALUS unleashes the (already existing) potentialities of the automation market to become multi-sided. All core market stakeholders are impacted, either directly or indirectly (plant operators/owners). A new generation of “Automation SW developers” may grow, thank to the abstraction layers of the technology. Automation players interested in using the technology will have access to the showcase to understand its potentialities and learn the methodologies.
Comment: Daedalus approach is hierarchical and self-similar at its core, meaning that its scope goes from field devices to full plants through progressive aggregation and abstraction
Comment: Device-level Showcase. Agent-level Showcase. Machine-level Showcase.
Comment: Factory-level Showcase. Plant-level Showcase.