Modular Hardware/Software Architecture for Edge Units in Highly Flexible Manufacturing Systems

Abstract

With the increasing demand for individualized production and swift adaptability to changing market needs, new manufacturing system concepts emerge. Aiming for high flexibility and scalability, they rely on universal reconfigurable machines that can be used in various production steps by automatically changing tools and sensors. Consequently, the data processing infrastructure is required to support the frequent exchange of process-specific software applications, ranging from control and monitoring tasks to complex sensor data processing. This can be a major challenge when computation-intensive software is supported by hardware acceleration to achieve the desired performance or latency requirements. In this paper, we present an edge unit architecture that allows for hosting such applications while meeting the needs for modularity and reconfigurability. It builds upon a hypervisor to partition fixed processing resources among the applications. We present a mechanism that extends this partitioning to field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA) by using dynamic partial reconfiguration. This provides the option to deploy application-specific hardware accelerators with computation-intensive applications while maintaining modularity and on-line reconfigurability. We conclude the paper by pointing out the potential of the proposed architecture based on a use case for automated disassembly in a reconfigurable robotic cell.