Annual Report 2016 - Mechanical Engineering

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Automation and Information Systems 267
Automation and Information Systems
Engineering and operation of intelligent, reconfigurable, distributed cyber-physical production systems
Prof. Dr.-Ing.
Birgit Vogel-Heuser
n The Institute of Automation and Information Systems (AIS) tackles the
challenges that result from the increasing demand to produce customer-
specific, individual products in the machine and plant manufacturing
domain by means of cyber-physical production systems (CPPS). In 2016,
AIS analyzed, established and improved novel methods in the area of
automation with a main focus on the fields of CPPS, model-based sys-
tems engineering, human-machine interaction as well as analysis and
aggregation of big data for Industry 4.0-capable systems.
Intelligent, Reconfigurable, Distributed CPPS
e.g. the extended need for communica-
tion.
Therefore, at AIS, notations, methods
and tools are developed for the design of
self-x (e.g. self-organizing, self-learning
and self-adapting) automation software for
machines and production plants in both
the manufacturing and process automa-
Phone +49.89.289.16400
Contact
Therein, innovative approaches for Indus-
try 4.0-capable systems have been and
are being developed to improve both the
engineering and the operation of CPPS.
Among others, technologies and methods
applied at AIS are agent-based and
service-oriented approaches as well as
modeling approaches – both semi-formal
and formal ones. Especially methods and
technologies from the computer science
domain are used and adapted to address
the challenges in automation and in the
machine and plant manufacturing domain,
for example technical debt, product line
approaches as well as ontologies. More-
over, taking the interaction with humans
and machines into account, the methods
and approaches developed at AIS are
analyzed and evaluated in real-world sce-
narios together with experts from industry.
The ever-increasing complexity and
dimensions of CPPS require a high
degree of flexibility and intelligence in
and among system components. Hence,
one aspect being addressed by AIS
is to explore the advantages of such
intelligent, reconfigurable, and distributed
systems contrary to their disadvantages,
Research focus of the Institute
of Automation and Information
Systems