Resulting Artifacts and Application Scenarios of the Communication Intermediate Layer SFCS With A Focus on Usability for the Automation Industry

Due to the influence of the digital transformation, communication between individual shop-floor components is changing more dynamic communication patterns and development platforms such as messaging and microservices. For a user-friendly entry into these interaction patterns, the research project SFSC (Shop-Floor Service Connector) created a communication layer that makes it easier for users from the automation sector and abstracts infrastructure aspects, such as a service registry, from the user in order to simplify the transformation for employees from the automation sector. For this purpose, the integrated messaging pattern publish/subscribe, request/reply, and channels with the SFSC architecture have already been presented in previous work. This architecture has now been extended with a microcontroller implementation and a deployment environment and finally validated with a demonstrator, which is presented with its performance results. The validation environment consists of a CNC milling cell, supplying assembly lines, a camera-based quality control, and a handling robot arm. Application scenario-typical data flow for data integration is mapped with the help of the PLC4X project and data-driven value-added services are realized and connected based on these.