Industrial Transportation Systems Research Articles

Cluster‐based context‐aware route service management for smart intelligent autonomous vehicles with industrial transport system

SummaryIndustrial transport system refers to the movement of goods, raw materials, and finished products within and between industrial facilities such as factories, warehouses, and distribution centers. It includes a variety of modes of transport such as trucks, forklifts, conveyor belts, and automated guided vehicles (AGVs). Context‐aware route service management refers to system that can dynamically manage and optimize the routes taken by vehicles in transportation system based on contextual information. Our proposed framework for industrial transport systems and smart intelligent autonomous vehicles utilizes cluster‐based context‐aware routing (CCAR), which includes several significant contributions. Firstly, modified elephant herding optimization (MEHO) algorithm is used to efficiently group autonomous vehicles for routing. Secondly, an improved gravitational search (IGS) algorithm is used for cluster head (CH) selection responsible for transferring context information between vehicles (V2V). Thirdly, a deep hybrid multi‐graph neural network (DHMG‐NN) is designed for optimal neighboring roadside unit (RSU) node selection through different design constraints to ensure data dissemination between vehicles and infrastructure (V2I). Finally, we validate the effectiveness of our CCAR framework using various simulation scenarios. Our framework achieves a reduction of up to 78% in computation time and an improvement of up to 25% in customer satisfaction ratio and 15% higher than the overall performance ratio compared to the existing frameworks.

Метод нахождения динамических приоритетов грузовых операций для оптимизации работы самоходных подвижных единиц в железнодорожных промышленных транспортно-технологических системах

The application of fuzzy logic is considered in optimizing the sequence of operations that involve the use of self-propelled units in industrial railway transportation. The consequences of using constant values calculated analytically as operation priorities have been analyzed. The type of queue discipline and the specifics of constraints on the stay of requests in the queue, characteristic of railway industrial transport and technological systems, are described. The advantages and disadvantages of existing methods for queuing freight operations specified in the daily work plan in railway industrial transport and technological systems are investigated. Limitations arising from the use of classical scheduling theory methods have been identified. Finding the optimal sequence of operations in railway industrial transport and technological systems involves simultaneous movement planning for multiple mobile units, which is not considered in classical graph theory. The classical problem of finding the shortest path and its known solving algorithms only work with static graphs, while railway industrial transport and technological systems are characterized by rapid changes in the graph's state. The problems caused by the dynamic nature of the graph's state in railway industrial transport and technological systems have been analyzed. The application of fuzzy logic methods will enable the construction of an optimal sequence of operations based on incomplete and imprecise information and address several operational planning tasks for freight operations without precise calculations. The expected result of applying the method for determining dynamic operation priorities implemented in the neuro-fuzzy module is an increase in the adaptability of operational planning for freight operations and a reduction in the time of engagement and the required number of self-propelled mobile units.

Tuning pulse frequency for improvement in the corrosion resistance of 304SS pipes inner DLC coatings deposited by hollow cathode PECVD

Metal pipes are widely used in industrial transportation system, but the inner surface of the pipes is easy to be corroded and not easy to be repaired, which leads to the great economic loss and environmental pollution. In this paper, the Diamond-like carbon (DLC) coatings was deposited on the inner surface of 304 stainless steel (304SS) pipes by the hollow cathode plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (HC-PECVD) equipped with the direct current power supply with the pulse frequency of 100, 500, 1000 and 1500 Hz. The aim of this paper is to improve the corrosion resistance of pipes inner DLC coatings by tuning the pulse frequency. Results indicate that the sp3-C hybridization content (16.7% ~ 26.7%), the disorder degree of carbon structure and the hydrogen content of pipes inner DLC coatings all show an increasing trend with the reduction of pulse frequency, while its stress level presents an opposite trend. Compared with 304SS pipes (0.51 V and 8.94 × 10−6 A∙cm−2), the pipes inner DLC coatings present more positive corrosion potential (−0.49 V ~ −0.27 V) and lower corrosion current density (3.62 × 10−6–4.46 × 10−8 A∙cm−2), better corrosion resistance, which is considerable as an effective protection coating. The pipes inner DLC coatings deposited at 500 Hz present the lowest corrosion current density (1.22 × 10−7–4.46 × 10−8 A∙cm−2). Moreover, the corrosion performances of the pipes inner DLC coatings deposited with the pulse frequency of 500 and 1000 Hz exhibit the better uniformity. Therefore, the pipes inner DLC coatings deposited at 500 Hz possesses the best corrosion resistance, which can provide important information for large-scale industrial production in the future.

Models of Air Pollution Propagation in the Selected Region of Katowice

The paper deals with issues related to analyzing the spread of air pollution and pollutants in large urban agglomerations, specifically, the search for causality between meteorological conditions and the concentrations of particular substances. The pollutants SO2 and PM10 were selected for analysis, which, in addition to NOx, CO, CO2 and PM2.5, contribute to smog, especially during the heating seasons. This analysis is particularly important because Polish environmental standards are more lenient than those in western EU states. Industrial activity, transport and heating systems based on coal-burning are still a big problem in Poland, and each year their gaseous and particulate emissions exceed air-quality limits. This paper presents a statistical analysis of data recorded at the air-quality monitoring station on Kossuth Street in Katowice concerning the heating seasons from 2013–2016. The verification of proposed parabolic models containing concentrations from previous time periods and statistically significant meteorological conditions was conducted for individual heating seasons as well for the whole set of data, which included the influence of wind speed and temperature. The models obtained proved that the selected form of a model is statistically significant, and its use may produce satisfactory forecast results and permit various environmental applications. The specified model might be used both for forecasting (verification and possibly updating coefficients to increase forecast accuracy) and analyzing the factors influencing pollution values. Such statistical analysis may be helpful in assessing the impact of measures adopted to reduce air pollution, particularly in large Polish cities.

Latency reduction for narrowband URLLC networks: a performance evaluation

Fifth-generation (5G) cellular mobile networks are expected to support mission-critical low latency applications in addition to mobile broadband services, where fourth-generation (4G) cellular networks are unable to support Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communication (URLLC). However, it might be interesting to understand which latency requirements can be met with both 4G and 5G networks. In this paper, we discuss (1) the components contributing to the latency of cellular networks and (2) evaluate control-plane and user-plane latencies for current-generation narrowband cellular networks and point out the potential improvements to reduce the latency of these networks, (3) present, implement and evaluate latency reduction techniques for latency-critical applications. The two elements we detected, namely the short transmission time interval and the semi-persistent scheduling are very promising as they allow to shorten the delay to processing received information both into the control and data planes. We then analyze the potential of latency reduction techniques for URLLC applications. To this end, we develop these techniques into the long term evolution (LTE) module of ns-3 simulator and then evaluate the performance of the proposed techniques into two different application fields: industrial automation and intelligent transportation systems. Our detailed evaluation results from simulations indicate that LTE can satisfy the low-latency requirements for a large choice of use cases in each field.

Design and Implementation of an Ethernet-Based Linear Motor Drive for Industrial Transport Systems

Ethernet-based motor drives are hard real-time control systems used to operate servomotors through the industrial Ethernet. Recently, Ethernet-based drives have drawn attention as a solution for industrial transport systems where numerous linear motor drives move magnetic shuttles individually or collectively to accurately position production parts. This paper presents the design and implementation of an Ethernet-based motor drive that enables delay analysis for synchronized motor actuation and sensing to build a scalable and precise industrial transport system. Our software design constructs the drive function using periodic tasks run by a rate-monotonic real-time scheduler and performs worst-case response analysis to determine the end-to-end delay required for the control host to actuate or sense the motor in the drive. Based on the calculated drive delays, clock-based I/O using Ethernet-provided global time realizes synchronized motor operation across multiple drives. In the Ethernet-networked control system, different phases of the host cycle with respect to the drive cycle can result in different actuation and sensing delays. To reduce the delay, we propose a phase-shifted loop method and present a heuristic to find the best phase that minimizes the normalized drive delays. Experimental results obtained using a prototype EtherCAT drive show that the phase-shifted loop significantly reduces the difference between the commanded and feedback currents while properly managing tracking errors. Performance evaluations are performed to investigate the impact of different Ethernet technologies on delays. Elaborated delay models are developed for EtherCAT and Ethernet Powerlink, and a comparative study of delay performance is conducted for various parameters, such as the number of drives, the message size, the network topology, and the bandwidth.

Transporte multi-AGV de una carga: estado del arte y propuesta centralizada

Un vehículo de guiado automático (Automatic Guided Vehicle –AGV-en inglés) es un sistema de transporte industrial completamente automatizado y alimentado por baterías. Estos vehículos son ampliamente utilizados en el sector industrial para sustituir a carretillas manuales y cintas transportadoras. El reto de la utilización de AGVs como agentes de transporte en entornos industriales pasa por dotarles de la inteligencia suficiente para desarrollar tareas colaborativas. Dentro de estas tareas colaborativas se diferencia el transporte multi-AGV de un objeto del transporte multi-AGV de múltiples objetos. Este trabajo presenta el estado del arte de las soluciones de transporte cooperativo de un objeto entre varios AGVs. Para ello, se revisan los fundamentos teóricos y se clasifican y describen varias propuestas para su resolución. Finalmente se propone una solución de control remoto centralizado para el transporte de una carga con AGVs omnidireccionales.

Magnetic levitation in industrial transport systems

Magnetic levitation in industrial transport systems

Integrated transport system - basis of Russia’s security

Possibility of improvement of optimization of integrated transport systems formed in case of several types of transport due to the introduction of design and construction management at the stage of creating subsystems of each type of transport. Factors intended to participate in the management of natural resources related to their extraction (technical and economic factors affecting the organization of movement by mode of transport and factors associated with the production of final transport products). The paper discusses the issues of placement and management capabilities of industrial transport systems based on the interaction of technical and natural systems. The implementation of project management methods for the construction of transport facilities developed on the basis of compiling individual project management algorithms, including organizational preparatory procedures, should be mandatory for all project participants, including customers.

Highly-scalable traffic management of autonomous industrial transportation systems

In this paper, we present a novel method for highly-scalable coordination of free-ranging automated guided vehicles in industrial logistics and manufacturing scenarios. The primary aim of this method is to enhance the current industrial state-of-the-art multi-vehicle transportation systems, which, despite their long presence on the factory floor and significant advances over the last decades, still rely on a centralized controller and predetermined network of paths. In order to eliminate the major drawbacks of such systems, including poor scalability, low flexibility, and the presence of a single point of failure, in the proposed control approach vehicles autonomously execute their assigned pick-up and delivery operations by running a fully decentralized control algorithm. The algorithm integrates path planning and motion coordination capabilities and relies on a two-layer control architecture with topological workspace representation on the top layer and state-lattice representation on the bottom layer. Each vehicle plans its own shortest feasible path toward the assigned goal location and resolves conflict situations with other vehicles as they arise along the way. The motion coordination strategy relies on the private-zone mechanism ensuring reliable collision avoidance, and local negotiations within the limited communication radius ensuring high scalability as the number of vehicles in the fleet increases. We present experimental validation results obtained on a system comprising six Pioneer 3DX robots in four different scenarios and simulation results with up to fifty vehicles. We also analyze the overall quality of the proposed traffic management method and compare its performance to other state-of-the-art multi-vehicle coordination approaches.

Contradictory Results of the GULAG Activities in the European North-East of the USSR

The author outlines the conflicts in the actions of the GULAG in the Soviet European north-east. Mobilization facilities of the GULAG allowed creating fuel and energy sources in the North-East of the country in short terms. Due to the GULAG, industries were being developed in the district without any prerequisites. Activities of the victimized population produced fulfillment of important innovative projects at the world level for that time. Primitive methods were often used for the creation of ambitious and high-tech projects with a great portion of manual labor. Forced migration brought about growth in population in the district, forced growth in the urban population, and rapid development of the area. Meanwhile, urbanization process proceeded spontaneously, without taking into consideration some of the possible negative effects of towns’ development having appeared at the camp centers. The need to relocate population from the North is a serious modern problem dating back to the GULAG. Industrial development of the area was followed by the attempt at making life of the locals a little bit more civilized: the victimized population created a health-care system in the Northern districts of the Komi Republic, as well as a personnel-training system, cultural institutions (theaters, social clubs, libraries, publishing houses) and education. Besides, a drastic change in the way of life of the locals under the impact of the GULAG economic activities brought about the destruction of the traditional way of life, loss of self-identity, and transformation of traditional morality. The industrial processes fulfilled by the GULAG were accompanied by the formation and development of the system of training skilled personnel for industries and transportation. At the same time, the wasteful squandering of the skilled prisoners’ abilities and talents occurred in the GULAG camps. The concentration of the labor force in the GULAG camps in the region encouraged the exploration of natural resources in the area in the short term and resulted in a developed economy. At the same time, the development by the camp method caused irreparable injury to the nature of the region. The camps’ economic activities led to the formation of new advanced industrial branches, transportation system, and social infrastructure as modernization phenomena. However, the totalitarian regime did not allow the introduction of the elements of the classical liberalism in the modernization processes. Industrial modernization was carried out by means of coercive labor, deprived of their civil rights, alongside with the lack of democratic values. Modernization was halved and pared-down.

Automatic generation of digital twin industrial system from a high level specification

A framework for the generation of industrial digital twins is presented in the paper. The framework supports industry automated systems preliminary design development, but also supports the following detailed designs implementation and final systems exploitation phases. The main problem is that requirements for first development phases are much more generic than those required for the later phases. The framework faces this problem by avoiding too detailed specifications for the digital twin generated software, but, at the same time, it takes advantage of the specific applications developed for each industrial implementation where that specificities are taken into account: the final control application and the management application. By properly linking both: the more generic digital twin and specific software applications specifically generated for the industry system, the framework may be ready to be used soon at the early development stages, but also may be used for detailed analyses at late booting and maintenance industry system phases. The system has been specialized in industrial transportation and warehouse systems. The paper presents an example of application for this kind of systems.

Integration of automatic generated simulation models, machine control projects and management tools to support whole life cycle of industrial digital twins.

The paper presents a framework of automatic generation of industrial digital twins. These digital twins will be suitable to support preliminary design phases of systems development, but also to support next phases of detailed designs implementation and systems running phases. These digital twin allow, from the preliminary designing phase, to generate a complete simulation of the target industrial system. But, at the same time, and without the need to develop and add any subsequent code, they should be a valuable support for the phases and tasks of exploitation: maintenance, machine or system learning, etc. The problem is that the requirements for first development phases are much more generic than those for later phases. For this reason, instead of incorporating specificities in the simulation system, the framework takes advantage of the applications which are being developed for the implementation of the real system. In these applications (the control program and the decisions and the high level management system), the specificities have had to be taken into account. The system has been specialized in industrial transportation and warehouse systems which, although have a finite number or building objects, they have an infinite set of final configurations, very different one from each other. The paper presents an evaluation of current simulation platforms suitable to be used as part of the framework, and the digital twin industrial system generation framework itself. An example of application is as well presented.

Применение структурно-технологического исследования при планировании развития транспортных систем промышленных предприятий

Применение структурно-технологического исследования при планировании развития транспортных систем промышленных предприятий

XKDCP: An Inter-KDC Protocol for Dependable Kerberos Cross-Realm Operations

The wide popularity of Kerberos made it the de-facto standard for authentication in enterprise networks Moreover, the lightweight nature of Kerberos makes it a candidate of choice for securing network communications in emerging non-enterprise information systems such as industrial control networks, building automation and intelligent transportation systems. Many of these potential applications of Kerberos involve infrastructures characterized by their large scale and strict dependability requirements. However, such requirements may not be met when crossrealm Kerberos operations are involved. In this paper, we outline the issues with the current Kerberos crossrealm model and present XKDCP (Inter Key Distribution Center Protocol), a new Kerberos cross-realm authentication model that improves on scalability and dependability by (1) relying on public key cryptography to dynamically maintain direct trust relationships between Kerberos realms and (2) adopting a proxy model to offload inter-domain exchanges and processing from the low-end devices to the Kerberos authentication servers.

A protocol for processing interfered data in facility sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have recently extended application areas to numerous sectors such as industrial automation, military applications, transportation systems, building management, and environment surveillance. In particular, WSNs provide flexible, reliable, cost-effective solutions to monitor the real-time status of automated manufacturing facilities. A facility-specific WSN for reliable monitoring and efficient management of industrial facilities is called the facility sensor network (FSN). In general, industrial facilities run various electromagnetic devices causing electromagnetic interference (EMI), which disturbs wireless data communication. To obtain accurate and reliable data in such environments, the FSN needs to deal with the EMI by proper deployment of sensor nodes and their validation and fusion. This paper proposes a data processing protocol, called Interfered Sensor Data Processing Protocol (ISDPP) to handle the EMI affecting wireless communication. ISDPP is developed with a data fusion algorithm and an exponentially weighted moving average/fuzzy logic-based error detection method to obtain reliable information from the FSN. To evaluate the performance, experiments in various settings are performed in a test-bed manufacturing facility. The experimental results indicate the interfered data, and outliers can be filtered out even if unexpected interferences occur in the facility. The FSN with the ISDPP can provide efficient real-time monitoring solutions for various industrial applications.

A Practical Approach for the Online Diagnosis of Industrial Transportation Systems

Model-based diagnosis enables the identification of minimal faulty component sets that explain encountered inconsistencies between a system's observed behavior and that of a “golden” system model. In this paper, we present a compositional model for the (online-)diagnosis of transient faults (like malfunctioning transportation segments, sensor errors, misrouting, …) in industrial transportation systems. Instead of analyzing flow parameters or modeling temporal behavior via finite state machines, we consider the temporal and logic constraints about a distributed item's progress separately, and at different abstraction levels. Initial results from an industrial facility show the applicability of our consistency-based diagnosis approach.

Experimental Investigation of Air Entrainment in Free-Falling Particle Plumes

Powders and granulated solids are widely used in industrial bulk solids storage, handling, and transportation systems. Such bulk materials handling operations frequently involve a falling stream of material. During such a process, the surrounding air is induced to flow with the falling particle stream, forming a particle-driven plume. Herein, experimental research results are reported on this fundamental problem, focusing in particular on the velocity profile of air entrained by the free-falling particles. This investigation shows that the velocity profile of the induced air can be modeled as a Gaussian distribution. The radius of the particle plume is found to increase linearly with increasing drop height, and it also increases with increasing bulk solid mass flow rate. Comparisons are made with other entrainment flows, such as jets and plumes, and it was found that air entrainment and hence the angle of spread of the particle-driven plumes was much less than for the other entrainment flows. The angles of spread of the particle-driven plumes were found to be in the range 1.3° < θ s < 1.8° as compared to θ s ≈ 5.7° for miscible plumes arising from sources of heat, for example. In addition, the centerline velocity of the induced air in the particle plumes was found to increase significantly with increasing drop height. Results from high-speed digital video records show that the bulk material does not dilate in a uniform manner as it falls, and a series of distinct particle clouds form in the core of the particle-driven plume. These clouds eventually disperse over a sufficiently large drop height.

Uncertain variables and learning process in an intelligent transportation system with production units

The paper concerns an industrial transportation system consisting of tree parts: the transport of a raw material, the set of parallel production units, and the transport of a product. The system is described by relations (inequalities) with unknown parameters. The purpose of the paper is to show how general concepts of uncertain variables and learning processes may be applied to the determination of decisions concerning the distribution of the raw material in the transportation system under consideration. Simple examples illustrate the decision problem and the learning algorithm presented in the paper.

Levitation and Thrust Control of a Completely Passive Core Excited Solely by Armature Currents of a Linear Synchronous Motor

Electromagnetic suspension is an essential technique commonly used in industrial transport system without mechanical contacts. The reduction of the energy consumption in mover side is significant. Authors have proposed a 4-pole electromagnet with three-degrees of freedom in its control, which works well for independent levitation stabilization of a single electromagnet. They also proposed a linear synchronous drive, in which the attractive force produced by armature flux of a linear motor is used as levitation force, for realizing a completely passive mover. The principle of the simultaneous control of levitation force and thrust is based on the separation of d- and q-axis current components. The basic idea, and simulation results are described as well as its successful experimental verification.