Communication Software Development and Experiments for a Cell Controller in a CIM System

자동화 시스템내 셀 제어기의 통신 소프트웨어 개발 및 실험

The demand for automatic manufacturing systems is increasing. Flexible Manufacturing System(FMS) is usually considered as a soluting for the shop floor automation. One of the difficulties in FMS is the communications problem. Since various machineries with different communications protocoles are included, applying a unified scheme is almost impossible. Therefore, a systematic approach is a key point to solve the communication problem. A cell is difined as an automation unit where closely related for a job reside together. A cell is a messenger between upper level computers and lower level machine equipment. In this research, the fonctions of the cell are defined to have more capabilities than conventional cells since a cell can be often a total manufacturing system is a small to medium sized factory. The cell conducts communications with different machines through the communications schemes established here. A set of software system has been developed according to the defined communication. The software has been tested for a simulation and real experiments for proof.