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

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

Website:	http://daedalus.iec61499.eu
Duration:	36 months
Start date:	01-10-2016
End date:	30-09-2019
Number of participants:	14
Total budget - EC contribution:	5079796 Euro - 3994296 Euro
Call topic:	Digital Automation - Novel architectures for factory automation based on CPS and IoT (FoF.2016.11-ii)
Instrument:	Collaborative project (generic)

Location

Characteristics

Impact (Performance - People - Planet - Future Products) - (12) view

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Economic sustainability

Comment:

Flexibility

Environmental sustainability

Reducing the consumption of energy, while increasing the usage of renewable energy

Towards circular ecomomy

Reducing the consumption of water and other process resources.

Material efficiency

Social sustainability

Human aspects

Comment: Daedalus technology (as any other to deploy Industry 4.0-ready automation) absolutely needs a change of perspective and culture in users of such technology (all automation stakeholders)

Skills-training

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/

Increasing human achievements in manufacturing systems

Occupational safety and health

Technologies and enablers - (9) view

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Mechatronics for advanced manufacturing systems

Control technologies

Intelligent machinery components, actuators and end-effectors

Comment:

Information and communication technologies

Programming Languages

Comment: IEC-61499: Interoperable event-based object orientation. Daedalus: Reference implementation of IDE for CPS development

Data processing

Modelling, simulation and forecasting

ICT solutions for modelling and simulation tools

Virtual models spanning all levels of the factory life and its life-cycle

Programming Frameworks – Software Development Kits (SDKs)

Data analytics

Cognitive and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies

Comment: CPS interface: Extension of automation objects to include/interface with behavioral models. HW/SW wrapping of legacy and/or proprietary systems

Integration level interoperability

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.

APIs and Integration Protocols

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.

Semantic/information interoperability

Comment: Orchestration development framework. IEC 61499: Supervised orchestration of distributed devices. Daedalus: SDK to design optimal distributed control solutions

Connectivity & network interoperability – communication protocols

Comment: IEC-61499: Real-time (non strict) and pre-defined topology. Daedalus: Auto-discovery and auto-binding over strict real-time

Application level interoperability

Comment: Integrating "digital" applications running in other platform into the real-time automation engineering environment is a very interesting use-case

Web-services / Composability

Modular Design and Deployment Approaches

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.

Open APIs and Communication Protocols

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.

Platform level interoperability

User Acccess and Rights Management

Comment: Developing a solution specific for IEC-61499. Open to standardized methods to interface to existing SoA approaches in higher levels of automation.

Authorisation and Authentication

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.

Performance characteristics

Real-time communication capability

Security

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

Scalability

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.

Standards, standardisation and regulation - (1) view

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Standards

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).

Business model aspects - (3) view

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Added Value from user perspective

Business model, added value and process focus of digital platform deployment

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.

Business ecosystem

Comment: Automation players interested in using the technology will have access to the showcase to understand its potentialities and learn the methodologies.