Adaptive Autonomous Machines - Modeling and Architecture

One of the challenges in mechanical and plant engineering is to adapt a plant to changing requirements or operating conditions at the plant operator’s premises. Changes to the plants and their configuration require a well-coordinated cooperation with the machine manufacturer (or plant manufacturer in case of several machines) and, if necessary, with his suppliers, which requires a high effort due to the communication and delivery channels. An autonomous acting machine or component, which suggests and, if necessary, makes necessary changes by automatically triggered adjustments, would facilitate this process. In this paper, subtasks for the design of autonomous adaptive machines are identified and discussed. The underlying assumption is that changes of machines and components can be supported by configuration technologies, because these technologies handle variability and updates through automatic derivation methods, which calculate necessary changes of machines and components. A first architecture is presented, which takes into account the Asset Administration Shell (AAS) of the German Industry 4.0 initiative. Furthermore, three application scenarios are discussed.