Brainport Digital Factory combines the expertise of its members to keep machines in manufacturing up-to-date by enabling continuously optimized software updates for these production machines. The best software technologies in the fields of low-code, digital twinning, big data and artificial intelligence are uniquely linked together to sustainably optimize machines. This development is unprecedented in the manufacturing industry, leading to the "Factory of the Future" with durable hardware and continuously optimized software.
Installing software updates is common for many products. Whether it's a smartphone or a Tesla, almost everyone installs software updates regularly. Yet installing a software update on a production machine today is exceptional. Such a machine is so specifically designed that updating requires a lot of customization and exploration, making it very time-consuming and difficult to perform flawlessly. As a result, a production machine can break down for an unpredictable period of time or fail later, which can lead to dissatisfied customers.
In practice, therefore, machines are rarely updated but end up being completely replaced by new machines. Each time, this requires a huge investment in money, time and energy and is an obstacle to keeping pace with new technologies and the global flexibility of market demand.
A consortium of Brainport Digital Factory members have been awarded an ITEA3 project proposal. ITEA3 is a European strategic research program for the development of software-intensive systems and services. The program helps companies strengthen their international competitiveness.
The ITEA3 funding awarded to the BDF consortium focuses on the ability to continuously improve machines through verified and validated software updates based on operational machine data and artificial intelligence. The consortium consists of Brainport Digital Factory member Cordis Automation, acting as consortium coordinator, together with cluster members KE-works and Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), knowledge institute TNO and industry partners Additive Industries and Lely Industries.
The innovation program supports the consortium members in further developing a range of innovative technologies with a total project budget of 5 million euros over a 3-year period. Cordis Automation has a low-code platform for control software, KE-works provides its product lifecycle management platform, TU/e adds formal verification technology, TNO adds artificially intelligent and other algorithm technologies. Industry partners Additive Industries and Lely Industries provide the use cases and will use the technology combination to continuously improve their machines through software updates.
To enable continuous improvement of machines through software updates, it is necessary to link a number of high-tech software technologies. For this reason, the expertise of several leading Brainport Digital Factory companies has been combined into a consortium working together in this area.
Linking technologies together provides great benefits, such as speeding up and simplifying application development.
The low-code platform Cordis SUITE makes it easier and faster to develop operating software applications. A proven method that generates error-free code (from the low-code platform). Developing operating software applications often takes a long time and is very error-prone. As a low-code platform, the Cordis SUITE makes it much easier to develop reliable software quickly. Machine behavior can be translated into a working software application using a visual, model-driven and simpler method.
With this method of software development, you visually describe the architecture and desired behavior of the application, so it no longer matters whether embedded controllers or PLCs are used-in other words, it is hardware-independent.
Virtual Commissioning, for machines using Siemens NX-MCD or Unity3D, for example, makes it possible to further shorten and optimize the design and construction process. With this technology, commissioning is done virtually first. In this way, design errors become visible at a very early stage and can be corrected at an early stage. As a result, fewer or no adjustments are required during the actual commissioning of the physical machine or when the machine is actually put into operation.
With formal verification methods, based on mathematical process algebra, from cluster member TU/e, it will be possible to find design errors in the application created using the Cordis SUITE low-code platform and thus further optimize the software application. This ensures that the software application meets high quality and safety requirements.A machine often performs several actions at the same time, and these actions differ from one situation to another. To pre-verify all these combinations of actions for quality and safety, it is necessary to apply formal verification to the design. With this technology, all possible actions and situations are verified. Due to the huge number of possible combinations, this cannot be done in the traditional way of testing.
In the next life cycle phase, when the machine goes into production, the following technologies are applied.
During machine production, a detailed, complete and continuous log of internal operational control data is stored. Moreover, using external (5G connected) sensor data along with the operational control data, you can find out exactly what the machine did, when and during which action. During machine software development using the low-code platform, all control data is automatically logged during machine operation. The Cordis SUITE generates and collects all operational control data for artificial intelligence applications. Related low-code design data is also used as input for artificial intelligence. Putting the two together creates a unique and very rich data set as input for machine improvement analysis. Together with knowledge partner TNO, it is being determined how the logged operational data, along with the low-code design models, can best be used by artificial intelligence and other algorithm technology in the industry partners' continuous optimization use cases.
Allowing software updates to machines has many benefits, but it requires careful management. BDF member KE-works' "KE-chain engineering platform" tracks all changes and related data sets, keeping track of the entire process of continuous lifecycle management of machines.
This new approach is being developed together with industry partners Additive Industries and Lely Industries and is therefore being applied in practice in two different areas.
With these insights, machines can be optimized without disrupting production. A continuous optimization cycle is created in which various high-tech software technologies are uniquely linked together. This allows a machine to stay up-to-date through software updates and continuous improvement by analyzing logged data with detailed machine information. This will boost the international competitiveness of the manufacturing industry.
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Cordis was founded in 2000 and has offices in Eindhoven and Málaga, where the product "Cordis-SUITE" was developed. Cordis-SUITE offers a software development platform based on Graphical Model-Driven software engineering.
It provides a software development solution that allows the development process to focus strictly on the behavior of the machine and not on the coding implementation. Coding rules are generated automatically and error-free from the graphical models. Most controllers used in industry are supported; PLC controllers such as Siemens, Beckhoff, Bosch Rexroth, Lenze and also Embedded controllers running on C# for Windows or Linux.
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