ABSTRACT
Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, industries have gained a thrust on contactless processing for computing technologies and industrial automation. Cloud of Things (CoT) is one of the emerging computing technologies for such applications. CoT combines the most emerging cloud computing and the Internet of Things. The development in industrial automation made them highly interdependent because the cloud computing works like a backbone in IoT technology. This supports the data storage, analytics, processing, commercial application development, deployment, and security compliances. Now amalgamation of cloud technologies with IoT is making utilities more useful, smart, service-oriented, and secure application for sustainable development of industrial processes. As the pandemic has increased access to computing utilities remotely, cyber-attacks have been increased exponentially. This paper reviews the CoT's contribution to industrial automation and the various security features provided by different tools and applications used for the circular economy. The in-depth analysis of security threats, availability of different features corresponding the security issues in traditional and non-traditional CoT platforms used in industrial automation have been analysed. The security issues and challenges faced by IIoT and AIoT in industrial automation have also been addressed.
ABSTRACT
Industrial automation has become increasingly more prominent in many industries, such as manufacturing, automotive, pharmaceuticals, and food processing industries, as the technology evolves and Industry 4.0 revolution advances. Th demand of automation and personnel with automation skills has ever been increasing since Covid-19 Pandemic. Industrial robots and machine vision inspection are essential systems for manufacturing automation. Industrial robots are capable of performing various tasks like part handling, machine tending, assembly, palletizing, arc welding, or laser cutting with high speeds, repeatability and accuracy. Machine Vision Inspection (MVI) systems are used for part quality inspection, manufacturing and assembly supervision and robot guidance. A MVI system integrated with an industrial robot provides a hand-eye coordination to the robot for flexible material handling and operations. Vision-guided robotics serves as the next-generation research instrument that opens new opportunities to advance the boundaries in science and engineering research. This paper focuses on teaching industrial robot programming to engineering students using an offline virtual robotic simulation software, Fanuc ROBOGUIDE and iRVision software. Using a virtual robot and offline programming with ROBOGUIDE reduces a risk by enabling visualization of the robot operations before an actual installation and operations. The ROBOGUIDE software will provide students with an experience of programming an industrial robot and will enhance the effectiveness of the teaching and learning process. The developed programs can be imported and implemented onto a real robot with a minimum configuration setup. The step by step approach of developing and programming a 2D vision guided material handling cell using ROBOGUIDE has been discussed in the paper such that other educators and students can learn and implement the project with ease. Copyright 2022. © by the International Institute of Informatics and Systemics. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
This article describes the implementation of a distance learning course in programmable logic control designed and delivered during the Covid 19 pandemic. The course has a strong practical orientation, so it was a particular challenge to maintain this orientation in the remote implementation of the course. The goal was achieved through a combination of software simulation tools, remote access to computers in the lab and interactive sessions with an instructor. © 2022 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
The Covid-19 pandemic has led to temporary disruptions to face-to-face teaching/learning at universities and other institutions, and a general shift to online or hybrid education and training. In this paper, the authors propose a new pedagogic methodology for teaching and learning based on a remote industrial automation laboratory located in the teacher’s house, to which it was given the acronym IAH-Lab. The main contributions are the proposed remote teaching/learning methodology, the architectures, and new remote setup (IAH-Lab) mounted for this purpose. Simulations and experimental results elucidate the potential and performance of the proposed remote laboratory (IAH-Lab). © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
Internet of things is a progressive terminology as a future era of computing. The covid-19 outbreak that is drawn once in a hundred years’ experience to all the mankind and so as per the saying “necessity is the mother of invention”, nearly all scientific as well as technological fields are battled to develop various verticals like drugs discovery, health care, distant education and so the major challenge of managing industry with modest human resources. To maintain countries’ economic status high, as Indian industrial domain majorly contributes to GDP growth that further needs to be kept running in any predicament. The prolonged lockdown hampered the global economy and hence, this paper focuses on the Industrial IoT, where without human assistance, many key processes can be monitored and executed. As information technology (IT) employees can work from home, industrial processes can also execute various automation tasks using process scheduler. This paper presents the new CatchPro protocol request scheduling algorithm for IIoT which can be a great solution for unmanned process execution with the performance improvement of 2.56%. Paper also presents the methodology and framework for industrial automation using MQTT protocol, where manufacturing units can efficiently work with remote monitoring and automation of processes. This paper targets the three important roles as process execution without in-person process handling, algorithmic execution for scheduling of the industrial tasks, and more efficient execution of IoT protocols for machine-to-machine communication via sensor network. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
ABSTRACT
Collision-free or contact-free routing through connected networks has been actively studied in the industrial automation and manufacturing context. Contact-free routing of personnel through connected networks (e.g., factories, retail warehouses) may also be required in the COVID-19 context. In this context, we present an optimization framework for identifying routes through a connected network that eliminate or minimize contacts between randomly arriving agents needing to visit a subset of nodes in the network in minimal time. We simulate the agent arrival and network traversal process, and introduce stochasticity in travel speeds, node dwell times, and compliance with assigned routes. We present two optimization formulations for generating optimal routes-no-contact and minimal-contact-on a real-time basis for each agent arriving to the network given the route information of other agents already in the network. We generate results for the time-average number of contacts and normalized time spent in the network. © 2021 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) created a shortage of mechanical ventilators in the healthcare sector, resulting in rationed distribution, ethical dilemmas, and high mortalities. This technical report outlines the design and product outcome of a mechanical ventilator based on readily available off-the-shelf components, minimizing the dependence on manufacturing facilities. The ventilator was designed to operate in both hospitals and remote locations, having the ability to operate off various gas pressures and low voltage supplies. Due to the COVID-19 restrictions, the challenges of developing a device in an online setting with minimal manufacturing assistance were explored. Within a 10-day period, the team designed, prototyped, and conducted preliminary feasibility testing on the mechanical ventilator. The proposed design was not intended to replace, or be used as a medically approved ventilator, but demonstrates the ability to exploit off-the-shelf components to enable fast development and assembly.