Page 279 - Mechatronics for Safety, Security and Dependability in a New Era

Ch53-I044963.fm Page 263 Tuesday, August 1, 2006 4:09 PM
Tuesday, August
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4:09 PM
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SYSTEM OVERVIEW
In the above-mentioned six functions, the function 1) and 2) are very important functions. To realize
them, we developed "Open Resource interface for the Network, ORiN" [Inukai T. and Sakakibara S.
(2004)]. ORiN is the base system of the following two sub-systems, "Soft-wiring system" and "Cell
Simulator". These systems are providing function 3) and 4) respectively.
To accomplish the distributed simulation environment such as 5) and 6), we use "High Level
Architecture, HLA [Hibino H. & Fukuda Y. (2002)]. By using HLA, the synchronization and the
logical time management between simulators can be achieved. Figure 1 shows our system overview of
a distributed real simulation environment [Inukai T., Hibino H. and Fukuda Y. (2004)].

Distributed Real Simulation Real Simulation Environment
- Hybrid Simulation - Function's ^
[2] Cell Simulator
Function
- Mechanical Design
[1 ] Soft-wiring System [\ 4
- Geometric Programming
- Electncal Desigri \
Distributed Simulation Environment

Figure 1: Distributed real simulation environment
ORiN is a software interface for FA devices and the applications. A real FA device is abstracted and is
indirectly accessed through the ORiN platform. Therefore the FA applications on ORiN access not a
real device but an abstracted device. In short, ORiN can absorb the differences of FA devices.
Therefore ORiN applications are executable both in a real factory and a virtual factory.

[1] "Soft-wiring system" provides the function to connect abstracted device logically. By using this
system, the information stored in I/O and variable of FA devices can be easily and intelligently
transferred to the other FA devices. Moreover different from conventional simulation system, this
system can connect not only emulators, but also emulator and real device. In other words, the client
program need not distinguish whether the supplied data is from a real device or from its emulator. The
difference is completely encapsulated.

[2] "Cell simulator" can provide the function to imitate mechanical motion in accordance with the
signals from the soft-wiring system. The mechanical behaviours are represented by two-dimensional
tree structure, and its node represents a simple motion. Complex motions are defined as a combination
of simple node. By using this simulator, end-user can easily define the motion of production cell.

[3] Synchronization mechanism and logical time management mechanism are very important to
achieve the seamless communication between simulators. The functions are provided by HLA and
ORiN-HLA gateway. The upper-layer simulators connected to HLA can retrieve the information of a
real device through the gateway, and vice versa.