Integration Of Individual Components Research Articles

The Digital Twin as a Core Component for Industry 4.0 Smart Production Planning

Production systems that adhere the Industry 4.0 vision require new ways of control and integration of individual components, such as robots, transportation system shuttles or mobile platforms. This paper proposes a new production system control concept based on closing a feedback loop between a production planning system and a digital twin of the physical production system. The digital twin keeps up-to-date information about the current state of the physical production system and it is combined with the production planner utilizing artificial intelligence methods. Production recipes and concrete process instantiations are planned for each production order on-the-fly, based on the production system state retrieved form the digital twin. This approach provides a high flexibility in terms of ability to add and to remove products as well as production resources. It also enables error recovery by re-planning the production if some failure happens. The proposed approach is tested and evaluated on an internally hosted Industry 4.0 testbed, which confirms its efficiency and flexibility

Design-for-testing for improved remanufacturability

By definition, a remanufactured product must perform to the same (or higher) level as the original product, and must therefore be issued a warranty of the same (or longer) duration. However, many components of remanufactured products will have been subjected to regular stresses in their first cycle of use and may exhibit unseen signs of damage at a microstructural level. This may not affect the remanufactured product’s performance initially but could cause it to fail before its renewed warranty expires. To combat this, we propose that the integrity of individual components is assessed non-destructively before they are consigned to storage. However, lack of remanufacture specific tools and techniques for assessment, particularly non-destructive tools, are major hindrances to this strategy. Furthermore, ease of non-destructive testing (NDT) is not currently a consideration in the design of components; components with complex geometries may therefore be difficult to test. This preview paper presents, for the first time, a framework for including NDT suitability as a design criterion at the outset of the component’s lifecycle, where the geometry and surface accessibility of the component are optimised for future assessment. Ensuring that components can be easily inspected would not only allow increased confidence in the structural integrity of remanufactured products, but it would also extend the range of products suitable for remanufacturing. This paper serves as a proof of concept, examining simple inspection scenarios in order to demonstrate how the shape of components and data acquisition geometries can adversely affect the coverage of ultrasonic NDT.

Magnetic Nanotweezers for Interrogating Biological Processes in Space and Time.

The ability to sense and manipulate the state of biological systems has been extensively advanced during the past decade with the help of recent developments in physical tools. Unlike standard genetic and pharmacological perturbation techniques-knockdown, overexpression, small molecule inhibition-that provide a basic on/off switching capability, these physical tools provide the capacity to control the spatial, temporal, and mechanical properties of the biological targets. Among the various physical cues, magnetism offers distinct advantages over light or electricity. Magnetic fields freely penetrate biological tissues and are already used for clinical applications. As one of the unique features, magnetic fields can be transformed into mechanical stimuli which can serve as a cue in regulating biological processes. However, their biological applications have been limited due to a lack of high-performance magnetism-to-mechanical force transducers with advanced spatiotemporal capabilities. In this Account, we present recent developments in magnetic nanotweezers (MNTs) as a useful tool for interrogating the spatiotemporal control of cells in living tissue. MNTs are composed of force-generating magnetic nanoparticles and field generators. Through proper design and the integration of individual components, MNTs deliver controlled mechanical stimulation to targeted biomolecules at any desired space and time. We first discuss about MNT configuration with different force-stimulation modes. By modulating geometry of the magnetic field generator, MNTs exert pulling, dipole-dipole attraction, and rotational forces to the target specifically and quantitatively. We discuss the key physical parameters determining force magnitude, which include magnetic field strength, magnetic field gradient, magnetic moment of the magnetic particle, as well as distance between the field generator and the particle. MNTs also can be used over a wide range of biological time scales. By simply adjusting the amplitude and phase of the applied current, MNTs based on electromagnets allow for dynamic control of the magnetic field from microseconds to hours. Chemical design and the nanoscale effects of magnetic particles are also essential for optimizing MNT performance. We discuss key strategies to develop magnetic nanoparticles with improved force-generation capabilities with a particular focus on the effects of size, shape, and composition of the nanoparticles. We then introduce various strategies and design considerations for target-specific biomechanical stimulations with MNTs. One-to-one particle-receptor engagement for delivering a defined force to the targeted receptor and the small size of the nanoparticles are important. Finally, we demonstrate the utility of MNTs for manipulating biological functions and activities with various spatial (single molecule/cell to organisms) and temporal resolution (microseconds to days). MNTs have the potential to be utilized in many exciting applications across diverse biological systems spanning from fundamental biology investigations of spatial and mechanical signaling dynamics at the single-cell and systems levels to in vivo therapeutic applications.

Decision functions for electric power system signals

Abstract An investigation of electric power system component deterioration has led to the development of a mathematical procedure which can be used to predict incipient failure or assess the integrity of individual components while they are operating in the power system.