Component-based System-level Control Architecture for Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems

摘要

The hardware and software of a Reconfigurable Manufacturing System (RMS) need to be designed in a modular form. The system-level control with open architecture for RMS can hardly be found in existing literature. A new emerging software paradigm called Component-Based Software Development (CBSD) can potentially be used to reduce software development costs and to rapidly assemble/configure systems. In this paper, a component-based, system-level control architecture using open standards is proposed for RMS. Formal component specification, which precisely describes and models software components, is critical in CBSD. An UML-based generic description is presented to comprehensively define software architecture and components.