OPC UA Discovery-Driven Dynamic Reconfiguration of Robotic Manufacturing Systems: Method and Deployment

In recent years, the diversification and individuation of market demand are becoming more and more obvious, which puts forward higher requirements for the flexibility of the manufacturing system. For cyber-physical systems, flexibility refers to the ability to be scalable and reconfigurable. The traditional industrial reconfiguration method is inefficient and lacks practical deployment, it can no longer achieve the flexibility required in practical manufacturing processes. To address these problems, this paper proposes a reconfiguration solution based on an optimization algorithm and the OPC UA discovery mechanism. The optimization algorithm is used to fast generate the optimal combination of system resources for minimizing the makespan. OPC UA discovery enables the plug-and-produce functionality that can accelerate new device integration. The proposed solution can provide decision-making support for the rapid reconfiguration of the manufacturing system and also allow for the dynamic integration of newly inserted devices into the manufacturing system. Finally, the feasibility of the solution is verified by a demonstration of reconfiguration in robotic manufacturing systems.