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FAR-EDGE | Factory Automation Edge Computing Operating System Reference Implementation

01-10-2016

31-10-2019

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Technologies and enablers

Comment:

The system blueprint is the FAR-EDGE RA. After having defined the requirements and the constraints for each block of the RA, a thorough analysis of the SotA has been done, which led to the identification of some existing software components meeting the specs. We then identified the gaps that the project will need to fill-in: not surprisingly, these where all the key enabling technologies, like the distributed ledger. However, hardly anything is going to be built totally from scratch in FAR-EDGE. The distributed ledger, for example, will be a customization of a generic, open source Blockchain platform (Hyperledger Fabric).

Comment:

We are considering some core GEs from FIWARE as candidate building blocks of our Edge Computing architecture. In particular, the Publish/Subscribe GE (Orion Context Broker implementation) is a good candidate as the northbound interface exposed by Edge Gateways – i.e., computing nodes aggregating a number of local edge nodes (field devices, smart factory equipment) and running local automation and/or analytics processes. We are considering to significantly extend the Publish/Subscribe GE by adding distributed computing capabilities: a data context that is replicated and kept in-sync across a number of GE instances (running anywhere on the network), using a Blockchain and smart contracts as the backing technology. FAR-EDGE will contribute its results, as open source software, to the FIWARE for Industry community.

Result items:

FAR-EDGE Architecture and Components Specifications

Result items:

FAR-EDGE Architecture and Components Specifications

In the scope of FAR-EDGE, the value of FIWARE is in the OMA NGSI standard: a RESTful Web API implementing the publish/subscribe pattern on context information – i.e., a set of attributes representing the current state of some device or process. NGSI is the common language that FIWARE applications use to integrate themselves with the IoT world. For this reason, supporting NGSI in FAR-EDGE means opening up the Platform to the FIWARE community. The FIWARE asset that is crucial for the support of NGSI is Orion Context Broker (OCB), which as for all FIWARE Generic Enablers is open source software. In FAR-EDGE, we envision the use of OCB to implement the generic publish/subscribe interface of the Distributed Data Analytics subsystem

Z-BRE4K | Strategies and Predictive Maintenance models wrapped around physical systems for Zero-unexpected-Breakdowns and increased operating life of Factories

01-10-2017

31-03-2021

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Technologies and enablers

Comment:

The Z-Break solution uses a variety of communication protocols. HTTP, OPC-UA, IEEE 802.15.4e and IEC WirelessHART. The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web. OPC UA supports two protocols. The binary protocol is opc.tcp://Server and http://Server is for Web Service. Otherwise OPC UA works completely transparent to the API. IEEE 802.15.4 is a technical standard which defines the operation of low-rate wireless personal area networks (LR-WPANs). It specifies the physical layer and media access control for LR-WPANs, and is maintained by the IEEE 802.15 working group, which defined the standard in 2003. WirelessHART is a wireless sensor networking technology based on the Highway Addressable Remote Transducer Protocol (HART). Developed as a multi-vendor, interoperable wireless standard, WirelessHART was defined for the requirements of process field device networks. Also, it uses the NGSI protocol. NGSI is a protocol developed to manage Context Information. It provides operations like managing the context information about context entities, for example the lifetime and quality of information and access (query, subscribe/notify) to the available context Information about context Entities.

Comment:

The AUTOWARE apps development will be supported and linked to the FIWARE. AUTOWARE approach is to connect and extend the FIWARE for Industry resources and assets to the end of digital automation community, so synergies emerge both in terms of multi-sided business opportunities and amount of resources that are made available to the cognitive automation community to build their autonomous solutions and apps.

Comment:

FIWARE is a curated open source framework with components that can be assembled together with other third-party ones to accelerate the development of Smart Solutions. The Orion Context Broker is the core component of any “Powered by FIWARE” platform. It enables the system to perform updates and access to the current state of context.