DII Department of Information Engineering

Autonomic computing initiative aimed to develop computer systems capable of self-management in order to overcome the rapidly growing complexity of computing systems
management. Similar complexity affects the management and control of the systems in the industry of the future that currently relies on the advancements in cyber-physical systems frameworks. With this position paper, the RMAS architecture is checked against the major properties of autonomic systems. RMAS is proposed as a methodological and technological platform to reduce the barriers that complexity poses to further growth in intelligent automation and control.

The standard definition of the key performance indicators for the manufacturing operations management level could not resist the incoming challenges and models of the 4th industrial revolution, which currently relies on the paradigms abiding by the cyber-physical system of systems vision. By means of a brief survey of the current trends, a set of recommendations are provided in order to open discussions for the foreseen evolutions of the ISO 22400 standard. A focus is made on the role of the humans in their increasingly closer collaboration with the pervasive autonomous intelligent entities in the
context of a human-centered manufacturing. It is contended that there is still some room for a review of the definitions of the performance indicators and their structure that should aim to reflect human and intelligent automation aspects in an integrated framework.

Emergency management can benefit from advanced information and communication technology (ICT), since it can support officers in charge of emergency management to deal with urgent decision within a really short deadline. Further enhancement can derive from the application of holonic systems, which typically deal with the unexpected. In fact, unexpected events may prevent the application of emergency plans, e. g. evacuation of people outside of a building in fire through a network of pre-determined paths. To cite some examples, the obstruction of a path by operators in charge of operation and maintenance or the collapse of non-structural components, like ceilings, may generate scenarios not expected within the standard emergency plan.
The holonic emergency management system, proposed in this paper, guarantees the shift to a contingent approach, leveraging the flexibility and adaptability to changing scenarios deriving from the holonic theory. Furthermore, the lowest levels of the system’s hierarchy, having a major autonomy, can cooperate in temporary subsystems, called “holarchies”, in order to face and solve common problems. Last but not least, the BIM integration provides all the building’s topological information. Such a technology can exploit general data to automatically detect unconventional ways out and arrange rescue operations in real-time.
In this paper an holonic system has been applied for the fire safety management of a large building in a university campus. The BIM model of the case study has been imported in a game environment where the unexpected scenario, due to an obstructed path, has been recreated. An A* pathfinding tool automatically provides in real-time the shortest paths to exits at the lowest holon level, in order to establish an emergent collaboration between endangered users and find out unconventional rescue solutions.

The present work extends a performance metrics method for the treatability of some classes of problems in manufacturing automation that can be represented as a system-of- systems controlled by a cyber-physical infrastructure. With the use of proper distributed and recursive computing approaches, the complexity of the control of cyber-physical systems can be attacked through a unified and human-centered simple framework that complies with the forthcoming pervasive computing challenges posed by the smart manufacturing scenarios. The aim of this work is to provide the proof of concept of an effective methodology that relies on the decomposition of a production goal into a hierarchical self-similar structure of subgoals for the steering of the system towards improved effectiveness. An implementation of the technique is proposed by
means of multi-actor and multi-database paradigms. The simulation of an implementation and an experimental deployment on low cost embedded device is provided.

This paper presents the detailed definition of technique for the automation of the management of complex business systems, whether they are constituted of services and productions. The technique has been referred here for the first time as Holonic Management Tree (HMT) and has been consistently contextualized into undergoing research on technological frameworks for the management cybernetics, in which the concept of viable system represents a fundamental stance. HMT is based on the use of recursive formulas over self-similar holonic structures for the attainment of continuous performance improvement in a complex and continuously evolving process. The problem is associated to a recursive tree of self-similar structures of which in this paper we discuss the interpretation with respect to knowledge modeling domain. The basic expressions for the computation of the 2nd degree trees are provided and explained in detail by means of an example in lean management context. Moreover, this work presents and discusses the expressions that handle the implementation of the n-th degree case as a recurrent abstraction of the basic and simple 2nd degree computation.

Building Information Modelling (BIM) has been indicated as the right tool to provide the construction industry with the productivity boost that has been lacking in the last 40 years. This momentum finds its highest fulfilment in the support provided by BIM models to knowledge management and the automation of process. However, the management of information flow is still far from its automation breakthrough and, as far as operation and maintenance are concerned, knowledge about procedures is often incomplete. Moreover, processes are often do not undergo optimisation and the individual steps to be performed are not communicated, but in facility management (FM) the transmission of know-how is fundamental particularly because some operations are dangerous or risky. In this framework, Mixed Reality (MR) represents a powerful means to communicate the correct data concerning both geometric features to be considered and the standard procedure to be followed. The aim of this paper is to investigate the possibility of exploiting the benefits provided by these technologies to achieve automation in the transmission of information and optimisation of procedures, improving efficiency and productivity thanks to a better understanding of the operations to be carried out and the reduction of errors. With the support of a head-mounted display (HDM) device with a see-through screen capable of presenting 3D virtual objects, this research tries to combine information from a BIM model with reality to study the benefits for maintenance personnel.

Building management systems monitor and control building performances in real-time. Most control systems, which have been developed in the last decade, achieve the required performances relying on a centralised and hierarchical framework. In the regular operation phase, these systems are usually able to efficiently reach their goals, whereas they often fail to stick to predetermined targets in the presence of unforeseen disturbances. As a matter of fact, traditional control systems suffer complex unforeseen scenarios that cannot be modelled by the analytics and knowledge integrated in these systems, because hierarchical systems strive to keep full control at any level. As an alternative, holonic management systems, which have been successfully applied in the manufacturing field, can tackle this type of drawbacks. The flexibility of their elementary units, the holons, makes it possible to avoid the rigid structure of hierarchical systems so as to respond quickly to disturbances and dynamically rearrange their structure. In this paper, a first holonic computing structure is developed for indoor comfort management in an office room. The structure developed can drive both the operation management phase and the medium-and long-term measurement of performances. The former is implemented by means of a sequence of specific minimum cost actions which is based on the overall throughput effectiveness (OTE) metrics. The latter exploits the same OTE metrics to suggest corrective and improvement actions. Finally, OTE diagnoses are redirected to a BIM model to support decision making for long-term improvement actions on the building facility.

Although an industrial robot represents a higher class of machine, it is a part of a production system. The robot, regardless of its own complexity, can be represented by a set of actions that leads itself towards the achievement of production goals. In the present paper the robot actions will be modeled as a production system in order to manage and monitoring its actions toward a production target. This will allow an easier integration of the robot within the production process, as required by the new paradigms for the factories of the future.

The present paper deals with a novel, alternative excitation device for vibratory feeders which is based on the use of smart materials for motion generation. In particular, the paper investigates how to improve the performance of a vibratory conveyor by replacing the traditional electromagnetic actuator with a new excitation system based on innovative dielectric elastomer membranes. One of the main research goals consists in the design of the dielectric elastomer actuator (geometry, number of membrane layers) in order to ensure to the conveyor the same basic vibratory performance of a conveyor
driven by electromagnetic actuator. At the same time, it is expected that the novel actuator solution leads to improved characteristics in terms of energy consumption and weight. A comparative performance analysis has been carried out in terms of frequency, transient, energy, and power responses. The simulation tests performed to characterize the dynamic behavior of the system have been described along with the promising
preliminary results.

This paper proposes RMAS (relational model multiagent system), a database-centric architecture for the realization of multiagent systems suitable for the embodiment of reasoning and control in cyber-physical systems. The RMAS uses a tightly coupled association between an active database management system and a host processing language. A first instance of RMAS is proposed by means of the coupling of the
Matlab environment and the SQLite database language. The choice of the database language is guided by the keen attention of RMAS to systems that feature scalability down to the tiny embedded systems of the Internet of Things. An example of a typical holonic manufacturing problem with mechatronics entities is conducted by means of the proposed architecture.

The present paper presents the further developement of a solution for the performance improvement of distributed cyber-physical systems that approximate complex productive processes, introducing self-similarities in holonic systems. The proposed methodology provides a viable solution for a manufacturing system that integrates robotics, mechatronics and automation systems at different levels. Performance measurements and bottlenecks detection on critical production paths achieve a pervasive control of the effectiveness of associated the system-of-systems by means of a well-defined sequence of specific and minimal corrective actions. This work presents an extension to n-th degree of formulas previously applied to tree structures of the 2nd degree.

This paper proposes a novel method for the structuring of the knowledge of a service process in order to be processed by lightweight declarative computing infrastructures. Through the identification of self-similarities in the process, the flow of the structured information and the sequence of activities performed in the process are easily implemented by means of cyber-physical systems technologies, in order to timely meet the customer/stakeholder’s requirements. The study was performed in a telecommunication service providing organization. Service teams create a collaborative network. With the use of the CPS proposed in this work they can communicate problems and disseminate solutions. This methodology uses the information of a set of performance indicators of the service organization to achieve a better control of the effectiveness and the bottlenecks in the supply network. The methodology is borrowed from the mechatronics field and it is prone to a natural extension and reuse for the similar information structures in manufacturing processes.

This system adopts spherical photographs to map coastal areas and port entrances. It is an augmented reality (AR) application to be regarded as an aid in navigation during the night and/or in foggy weather conditions. Also, the system offers unique multimedia content which will be applied in other areas, such as monitoring illegal constructions along the coasts.

The present paper proposes a conceptual framework along with a practical solution for the problem of integrating the performance indicators of production processes with the capabilities of robotic systems and machinery. This will enable technology transfer and development of automated production processes within the new vision of industry 4.0. The proposed methodology is a solution for improving the performance of a manufacturing system that integrates robotics, mechatronics and automation systems at different levels. Performance measurements and bottlenecks detection on critical production paths are performed in order to achieve a dynamic and on-line system improvement. This consists of a pervasive control of the effectiveness of the system-of-systems, by means of a well-defined sequence of specific and minimal corrective actions. The proposed technique is advisable in the complex scenario of decentralized manufacturing. The nature of the solution is context-dependent and scalable.

Measuring systems used for alternative control are the basis of the kitchen fronts acceptance. The assessment of such products is difficult. On the basis of the performed analysis, it can be said that different operators make different decisions that result in different problems in a case study manufacturing company. In the work, the authors propose a cyber-physical distributed computing infrastructure to implement performance metrics methods extended to manage the control system and to support the decisions concerning improvements in the control process. It will result in the minimization or avoidance of operators’ mistakes concerning the wrong acceptance or rejection of the finished product.

The present paper proposes an effective metrics for production efficiency and a bottleneck detection algorithm of recursive nature for its application on lightweight embedded systems on board of the robotics and automation components of the factory of the future. The proposed methodology is particularly suited if the fractal paradigm is applied to the factory seen as a complex system of systems but with relevant self-similarities across the several layers of components and structures from the shop-floor up to the enterprise level. A performance test has been conducted to demonstrate the viability of the technology for tiny embedded devices with the use of declarative embedded database language. Due to the high scalability of the algorithm and its simplicity, it seems suitable also for the robotic cloud paradigm, where constituent mechatronics, sensors and actuators components are provided as a service. The results provided suggests that, with the use of similar recursive and distributed form of computing, production bottlenecks or fault detection can be scaled to address the complex and pervasive cyber-physical systems problems that characterize the 4th industrial revolution strategies.