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Researchers Propose Wireless Wisdom for Manufacturing Factory

Jul 18, 2019

Imagine a large group of automated guided vehicles (AGVs) carrying large components in a manufacturing workshop instead of manual laborers.

Recently, a group of researchers from Shenyang Institute of Automation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences proposed Wireless networks for Industrial Automation-Factory Automation (WIA-FA), which is the first and only approved international standard of industrial wireless control networks for factory automation.

WIA-FA, approved by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) as a standard in 2017, has been successfully applied in monitoring and controlling industrial robots in digital workshops, wirelessly connecting AGVs in logistic systems and coordinating multiple cooperative AGVs, according to a recent study published in Proceedings of the IEEE. The data period of nodes can be less than 10ms for networks with 100 nodes, and communication reliability can reach above 99.99%.

Wireless networks in intelligent manufacturing factories must meet strict requirements in terms of latency and reliability. Typical industrial environments include many sources of strong noise and interference. Besides, manufacturing factories tend to be filled with obstacles and metallic materials which severely disturb wireless transmissions. Therefore, it is quite challenging to guarantee the transmission reliability when mobile robots, such as AGVs move from place to place on a work site.

WIA-FA defines a group of physical devices of which each is capable of fulfilling one or more functions. A redundant star topology is defined for WIA-FA, and is formed by the gateway device with multiple access devices where each access device further forms a star topology with multiple field devices. The access devices do not directly communicate with each other but communicate with the gateway by wired connection. Therefore, all access devices are synchronized with the gateway, and are with the same address and transparent for field devices. A field device may connect with multiple access devices wirelessly.

"The AGVs have become the killer application of WIA-FA networks, especially in warehouse and logistics,” said LIANG Wei, the leading researcher of the study. The fast mobility of AGVs calls for advanced wireless technologies for the networking of an AGV system. WIA-FA has been running stably and successfully on AGV scheduling system in Yunnan KSEC Intelligent Equipment Company, Ltd. The average traffic data flow of each AGV could reach up to 100 Kbyte/s, with transmission reliability above 99.99%.

Another representative application of WIA-FA is the remote monitoring of industrial robots on the production line in the digital workshop of the SIASUN Company. WIA-FA is configured to wirelessly transmit the operating parameters such as working voltage, current, motor temperature, rotation speed to the main control cabinet. The deployed WIA-FA network has been stably running for more than two years.

"WIA-FA also has great application potential in the cooperation of multiple industrial robots, for example when multiple AGVs are required to carry large and complex components,” said LIANG. Under such scenario, the master AGV is equipped with two WIA-FA field devices: one for the communication with the AGV scheduling server, and the other for the cooperative communication with other slave AGVs. After being grouped, all the motion information of the slave AGVs in one group including the location, speed, and acceleration are periodically reported by their master AGV to the AGV server.

Equipment developed based on WIA-FA have received the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) certification of the United States in 2019, after being granted Certification of Compliance (CE), Restriction of Hazardous Substances (ROHS) by the European Union in 2017, and Radio Transmission Equipment Type Approval Certificate (RTETAC) by State Radio Regulatory Committee (SRRC) of China in 2016.

"WIA-FA solution has made breakthroughs in tackling bottleneck problems such as high concurrency, anti-interference and hard real-time. WIA-FA solution will play an important role in the technology upgrading of factory automation,” said Ruby Belliardi, the secretary of IEC/TC65 (technical committee under the IEC to prepare international standards for systems and elements used for industrial process measurement, control and automation).

Contact

LIANG Wei

Shenyang Institute of Automation

E-mail:

WIA-FA and Its Applications to Digital Factory: A Wireless Network Solution for Factory Automation

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