Logic Control of an Industrial Automation Cell with ROS as Part of SMEs and Industry 4.0 Interconnection

Abstract

The global market for industrial robotics is controlled by a small number of leading producers. Especially for SMEs that face the challenges of the Industry 4.0 paradigm shift, not only the acquisition costs of robotic equipment but also the cost of opting into the producer’s proprietary software ecosystem impedes cost-efficient operations. Inevitable this creates a vendor lock-in for the customer, which causes more secondary expenses like training costs and unpredictable migration costs in case of a vendor change. As a large fraction of the work necessary to implement an industrial automation cell is dedicated to process control tasks, the required logic usually has to be implemented using the software ecosystem and proprietary programming language provided by the vendor. There is a major trend within SMEs to reduce the vendor lock-in for process control logic by introducing open solutions and open communication standards, rather than relying on closed and proprietary software components and protocols. The implementation of open technologies not only helps SMEs to reduce software license costs, but also enables them to increase the overall system flexibility, either by incorporating multiple types of industrial robots (articulated, SCARA, cartesian coordinate, etc.) or by defining and consuming open interfaces in order to facilitate communication with partner systems. The goal of this work is to evaluate the use of open standards and open-source solutions regarding their applicability for modern production lines, taking into account the need for open communication standards, which are demanded the by Industry 4.0 revolution. In addition, a simulation of an specific automation task common for an SME environment is developed within the scope of this work in order to show the practical feasibility and flexibility of an open-source process control solution.