Process execution in humanized Cyber-Physical Systems: soft processes

摘要

One of the most common applications for Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) is process execution. Nowadays, different description languages are employed in order to define, command and control the execution of processes using the elements making up a CPS. However, this approach creates rigid (or hard) processes, which are only valid in certain scenarios. The inclusion of legacy systems, new Industry 4.0 devices and, overall, humans as part of CPS, has caused the appearance of new paradigms which cannot be addressed with traditional execution techniques. Therefore, in this paper a new type of (soft) processes, designed to be employed in humanized CPS, is presented. The proposal is based on the concept of "strain", which is used to determine if a deformable process has been correctly executed. Finally an experimental validation is provided in order to evaluate the performance of the proposed technology.