5G++ FlexiCell

Abstract

Manufacturing machines need to be retooled approximately 15 times per week and in the future even more often because of decreasing batch sizes and increasing short-cyclic demands. Collaborative robots promise to offer a versatile automation approach for priorly manual tasks in small and medium-sized enterprises. However, their configuration needs to change at least as often as the retooling rate because different parts are produced by the machines or might require different handling in general. Therefore, it would be great if robots and autonomous factory systems, in general, would automatically adjust to these changes in an intelligent way. In our approach, we propose a context-aware and location-based approach for agile manufacturing, in which the manufacturing plant parts, especially the collaborative robots, store i) their constellation, ii) their configuration, and iii) their adaptation strategy, and can react to retooling changes and even re-location changes adaptively. For example, moving one collaborative robot to a different location next to the plant will automatically load its new configuration and consult the operator on the adaptation strategy (i. e. the safety requirements). To realize the localization and the network capabilities, we propose to use a multichannel 5G-enabled communication base station and an intelligent asset management strategy.