CREATING AWARENESS IN AUTOMATION SYSTEMS
ENHANCING AUTOMATION DEVICES WITH LOW-COST IOT EQUIPMENT ENABLES DEVICE-AWARENESS AND FOSTERS NOVEL COGNITIVE SERVICES
In the context of Cyber Physical Production Systems several research challenges have been identified. One constitutes the need for machines to contextualize themselves in the environment and thus gain awareness. Recent advances in Data Analytics, Machine Learning, and Internet of Things (IoT) provide the necessary tools to enable awareness, however the adaption towards such technologies in automation is slow, due to the longevity of legacy systems. The project Simatic Failsafe 4.0 investigated how IoT can be used to retrofit legacy equipment in order to enhance it for contextual awareness. The investigated use case concerns enhancing programmable logical controllers with awareness regarding the temperature in environment to allow for the implementation of novel services such as condition monitoring enhancing the service portfolio of PLC systems.