TWI812920B - Automation equipment control system, system architecture and operation method thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

The application provides an automation equipment control system, a system architecture and an operation method thereof. The automation equipment control system comprises an operating system layer, a data distribution service layer used to create and initialize a database with a shared memory of a specific size specified by a configuration file, and a robot operating system layer used to communicate and exchange data with the operating system layer and accesses the data in the shared memory based on the data distribution service. In this way, each subject node and data in this system architecture will share various services of the data distribution service, and all data exchange and reference are performed inside the shared memory, which effectively improves the operating efficiency of the automation equipment control system.

Description

Automation equipment control system, system architecture of automation equipment control system and how it works

The present invention relates to a system, a system architecture and an operating method thereof, and in particular, to an automated equipment control system, a system architecture of an automated equipment control system and an operating method thereof.

As the Internet of Things (IoT) technology opens the fourth industrial revolution, and moves from traditional industrial automation to highly automated smart manufacturing based on the Internet of Things, through Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR) , Collaborative Robot (COBOT) manufacturing has become a necessary construction of future factories. When modern factories introduce various automated networked production equipment, the digitalization requirements of factories and the interconnection and common interface standards between machines and equipment will also follow. Improve system architecture to provide instant control and reliable communications.

The concept of the factory of the future is based on smart manufacturing, which completely connects information technology, operating technology and communication technology, and uses the new generation Robot Operating System (Robot Operating System 2, ROS2) to provide an efficient intermediary layer for data transmission. (Middleware Layer) has gradually become the application programming interface (API) standard for intelligent robots, and provides decentralized data distribution services (Data Distribution Service, DDS) with high quality of service (Quality of Service, QoS) control capabilities. /different The advanced data exchange mechanism will enable real-time communication capabilities, highly reliable data exchange and sharing, and highly intelligent data processing capabilities between internal equipment in future factories. For example, the factory's static equipment and mobile machinery, and even human-machine interfaces and sensors, etc., can use the robot operating system platform to import the transmission protocol of the publish and subscribe mechanism of the data distribution service for real-time interconnection and collaborative communication. And transmit the data to the cloud for storage and analysis using artificial intelligence, allowing various mobile robots in the factory to be put into production, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) pickup, automatic guided vehicle (AGV) transportation logistics and automatic warehousing, etc., all under unmanned wireless or It is completed in a human-machine collaboration environment to realize various smart manufacturing application scenarios in future factories.

However, as the number of internal devices in the factory increases, the amount of data exchanged in real time also increases. Therefore, problems such as network delay, bandwidth waste and congestion will lead to low performance of the overall system.

In view of the above-mentioned deficiencies in the prior art, the present invention proposes an automated equipment control system, a system architecture of the automated equipment control system, and an operating method thereof, which utilize the architecture of a data distribution service so that participants in the automated equipment control system can operate based on the same Topics access the same memory partition, reducing the memory required for data exchange and improving overall system performance.

The main technical means adopted to achieve the above purpose is to make the operation method of the aforementioned automated equipment control system include enabling the data published by the publisher to be stored in the shared database according to the topic, and enabling the subscriber to obtain the data in the shared database according to the subscribed topic. , where the shared database is created or initialized by specifying a specific size in a configuration file.

Another main technical means adopted to achieve the above purpose is to make the aforementioned automation equipment control system include a database unit, a memory unit and a processor unit. The database unit includes configuration files, and the memory unit at least includes applications and robot operating systems. Program and data distribution services program, and the processor unit is used to execute the programs, configure the data distribution service with the configuration file and create a shared database, so that the programs can share database sharing services and information based on the data distribution service.

Another main technical means adopted to achieve the above purpose is to make the system architecture of the aforementioned automated equipment control system include an operating system layer and an intermediary layer. The intermediary layer includes a data distribution service and a robot operating system, where the data distribution service is specified by a configuration file. A shared database of a specific size is used to create or initialize the shared database, so that the data published by the publisher is stored in the shared database according to the topic, and the subscriber obtains data from the shared database based on the subscribed topic.

Therefore, in this automated equipment control system architecture, each subject node and data will share various services of the data distribution service, and the shared memory will be regarded as the same node without cumbersome exchange of various messages with each other. Through this, all data exchange and References are all performed within the shared memory, effectively achieving the purpose of improving the operating performance of the system.

1. 1’: Automation equipment control system

2:Automation equipment

3:Internet

10: Processor unit

20: Database unit

30: Memory unit

31:Application

32: Robot operating system program

33: Data distribution service program

34: Operating system program

40:Network unit

50: Input and output interface

60:Expansion interface

70: Peripheral units

331:Continuing services

332: splicing service

333: Simple Object Access Protocol Service

334: Database management system services

335:DDS transport protocol service

700:System Architecture

710: Operating system layer

720: Intermediary layer

721: Robot operating system layer

722: Data distribution service layer

730:Application layer

Ta, Tb, Tc, Td, Te: theme

P1, P2, P3, P4: memory partition

Shmem: shared memory

Domain: domain

IP/Port: Network interface

S810, S820, S821, S822: steps

Figure 1 is a schematic diagram of the usage environment of the automated equipment control system according to the embodiment of the present invention; Figure 2 is a system block diagram of the automated equipment control system according to the embodiment of the present invention; Figure 3 is a diagram of the automated equipment control system according to the embodiment of the present invention. Another system block diagram; Figure 4 is a schematic diagram of a memory unit according to an embodiment of the present invention; Figure 5 is a schematic diagram of a data distribution service program according to an embodiment of the present invention; Figure 6 is a diagram of the operation of a data distribution service according to an embodiment of the present invention. Schematic diagram of the embodiment; Figure 7 is a system architecture diagram of the automated equipment control system according to the embodiment of the present invention; Figure 8 is an operation flow chart of the automated equipment control system according to the embodiment of the present invention; and Figure 9 is a system architecture diagram of the automated equipment control system according to the embodiment of the present invention. Another operational flow chart of the automated equipment control system.

In order to achieve the above objects and effects, the technical means and structures adopted by the present invention are described in detail below with reference to the preferred embodiments of the present invention, so as to facilitate a complete understanding.

Please refer to Figure 1. Figure 1 is a schematic diagram of the usage environment of the automation equipment control system 1. The automation equipment control system 1 communicates with multiple automation equipment 2 through a wired or wireless network 3. The automation equipment control system 1 is used to generate A plurality of control programs are provided to the automation equipment 2 , and each control program corresponds to one or more automation equipment 2 . Therefore, the automation equipment control system 1 can establish communication connections with the automation equipment 2 through the control programs and exchange information and instructions, so that the automation equipment 2 can perform corresponding actions according to the received instructions, and Real-time operating environment information can be provided to the automated equipment control system 1.

In this embodiment, the network 3 can be implemented by a network protocol such as a mobile communication network or an Ethernet network, and the invention is not limited thereto.

In this embodiment, the automation equipment control system 1 can be implemented by a robot controller, and the invention is not limited thereto.

In this embodiment, the automation equipment 2 can be implemented by mechanical arms, automatic guided vehicles, processing machines, smart glasses, drones and other devices, and the invention is not limited thereto.

To further illustrate the automated equipment control system 1 of the present invention, please refer to FIG. 2 . In this embodiment, the automated equipment control system 1 at least includes a processor unit 10 , a database unit 20 and a memory unit 30 . In another embodiment, the automation equipment control system 1' may further include a network unit 40, an input and output interface 50, an expansion interface 60 and a peripheral unit 70, as shown in Figure 3, and the present invention does not use this for restrictions.

The database unit 20 is electrically connected to the processor unit 10 and stores at least one configuration file. The configuration file is used to configure and/or set the data distribution service.

The memory unit 30 is electrically connected to the processor unit 10 and includes a plurality of programs. The programs include at least one application program 31 , a robot operating system program 32 and a data distribution service program 33 . Furthermore, the memory unit 30 further includes an operating system program 34, as shown in FIG. 4 .

The operating system program 34 is used to manage the hardware devices of the automated equipment control system 1 and execute basic business operations of the automated equipment control system 1 so that different software and hardware can operate together.

In one embodiment, the operating system program 34 can be implemented in WindRiver, Real-time operating system (RTOS), Windows, or Ubuntu, and the invention is not limited thereto.

The data distribution service program 33 is used to implement the data distribution service and provide a data-centered data exchange model to greatly improve the common problems of data exchange in the master-slave (Client/Server) or centralized system architecture, including single node Network delays and data transmission modes caused by failures often result in bandwidth waste and congestion, and are unable to meet the needs of the Internet of Things for real-time data exchange among huge numbers of endpoints. Therefore, this distributed data management system architecture not only has the characteristics of simplicity, flatness, and decoupling, but also allows peer-to-peer communication, multicast, and dynamic discovery functions. It is quite Suitable for efficient data transmission requirements of real-time systems. This system architecture is based on the publish and subscribe transmission mechanism of the topic of the data distribution service, which allows communication-connected automation equipment or sensors to store their data on the topic (Topic). Automation equipment or newly added automation equipment in need The device can obtain data by subscribing to the topic without the need to rewrite the program, making the entire system more fault-tolerant and more flexible.

The robot operating system program 32 is a set of computer operating system architecture specially designed for robot software development. It is used for data transfer and exchange between programs, and serves as the data distribution service program 33 and the at least one application program 31 The intermediary layer between them enables the at least one application program 31 to implement distributed data management through the robot operating system program 32, thereby reducing the memory space occupied and improving the operating performance of the system.

In this embodiment, the robot operating system program 32 can be implemented in a new generation robot operating system (Robot Operating System 2, ROS2), and the invention is not limited thereto.

In this embodiment, the at least one application program 31 is an extended software program or a third-party open source software program, such as Gmapping, AMCL, Navigation 2, NeuROSkin and other applications with different functions, and the invention is not limited thereto.

Please refer to Figure 2 or Figure 3 again. The processor unit 10 is used to execute the programs of the memory unit 30, and use the data distribution service program 33 to provide data distribution services according to the configuration file of the database unit 20. Configure and/or set up, and execute and/or exchange instructions or data required for the operation of the automation equipment control system 1, 1'.

In one embodiment, the processor unit 10 can be implemented by one or more processors, and the invention is not limited thereto.

In one embodiment, the processor unit 10 can be implemented by a graphics processing unit (GPU) and/or a central processing unit (CPU), and the invention is not limited thereto.

In this way, each subject node and data in the automation equipment control system 1 will share various services of the data distribution service, effectively achieving the purpose of improving the operational efficiency of the system.

Further, the network unit 40 is electrically connected to the processor unit 10 and is used to provide a network communication interface so that the automation equipment control system 1 can communicate with the network 3 and through the network 3. Establish communication with the automated equipment 2.

The network unit 40 can be implemented by a communication circuit that complies with mobile communication network and Ethernet specifications, and the invention is not limited thereto.

In one embodiment, the network unit 40 is further used for clock synchronization with the peripheral unit 70 , wherein the network unit 40 can be implemented in accordance with a Precision Time Protocol (PTP) communication circuit, and the present invention does not use this as an example. limit.

Further, the input and output interface 50 is electrically connected to the processor unit 10 to provide a data exchange interface between the automation equipment control system 1, 1' and external devices, so as to improve the automation equipment control system 1, 1' and The convenience of cooperation with other devices, where the external device is, for example, a notebook computer, a tablet computer, a display screen, a keyboard, a mouse, the automation device 2, etc., and the invention is not limited thereto.

Thereby, a user can set, control and/or operate the automation equipment control system 1, 1' through the external device, so that the automation equipment control system 1, 1' generates and provides the control program to the and other automation equipment2 to effectively build an automated industrial environment.

In one embodiment, the input and output interface 50 is, for example, at least one universal serial bus (USB), at least one controller area network (CANBUS), at least two digital input and output ports (DIDO), and at least one Raspberry Pi serial port. (I2C), a serial peripheral interface (SPI SD card), at least one serial communication standard (RS232/RS422/RS485), a high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) and at least one general-purpose input/output (GPIO), and the present invention This is not a limitation.

The expansion interface 60 is electrically connected to the processor unit 10, and is used to provide an interface for expansion devices of the automation equipment control system 1, 1', so as to enhance the specifications of the automation equipment control system 1 through the expansion interface 60.

In one embodiment, the expansion interface 60 can be implemented by at least one of a SATA expansion slot and/or a PCIe expansion slot, thereby improving the expansion flexibility of the automation equipment control system 1 , and the present invention does not take this as an example. limit.

The peripheral unit 70 is electrically connected to the processor unit 10 and is used to collect environmental information of the automated equipment control system 1 to grasp the surrounding environmental status of the automated equipment control system 1 .

In one embodiment, the peripheral unit 70 can be at least one inertial measurement unit (for example, a nine-axis IMU), at least one camera (for example, a photography lens module implemented with a multi-lens connector), and the present invention does not use this for restrictions.

Thereby, the automation equipment control system 1, 1' can communicate with the remote automation equipment 2, and can set and control the automation equipment control system 1 with the external device, and effectively perform the data distribution service. The exchange of data and services can effectively achieve the purpose of improving the operational efficiency of the system. In addition, in an environment where a single automation equipment control system 1, 1' controls multiple automation equipment 2, the data distribution service can improve efficiency, reduce memory consumption, data transmission requirements, increase scalability, and reduce cost consumption. and time delays.

Next, the data distribution service program 33 will be further described. Please refer to Figure 5. The data distribution service program 33 is used to provide a durability service 331, a spliced service 332, a Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) service 333, and a database management system ( DBMS) service 334 and a DDS transport protocol (DDSI/DDSI2) service 335. The basic communication scope of the data distribution service is defined as "Domain", and the data distribution service program 33 controls all the publishers/subscribers in the domain. Participant service, and the data distribution service program 33 creates or initializes a memory space by specifying a shared memory Shmem of a specific size through the configuration file, such as an extensible markup language (XML) configuration file. , where the memory space is used to provide common services and data shared among all participants.

In this embodiment, the continuous service 331 of the data distribution service program 33 is responsible for data synchronization and data recovery; the splicing service 332 is the entrance to the entire data distribution service and is responsible for managing and monitoring the communication between each service. Operation status; the simple object access protocol service 333 is an interface service responsible for various data distribution service testing, research and development and other tools; the database management system service 334 is a service responsible for controlling data storage; and the DDS transmission protocol service 335 , is a service responsible for controlling the underlying interoperability of data distribution services. Based on the standard communication framework of data distribution services, it implements functions including automatic discovery mechanism, compatibility, data communication and UDP/TCP/IP communication implementation.

Please refer to FIG. 6 . FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram of an embodiment of the present invention executing the data distribution service program 33 on the automation equipment control system 1 . The following description will be made in conjunction with FIG. 2 or FIG. 3 . Since the service of this data distribution service is defined as a domain service, and only data in the same domain can communicate with each other, any node joining in the domain is regarded as a participant. Participants as publishers publish messages (or data) corresponding to single or multiple topics (Ta, Tb, Tc, Td, Te as shown in Figure 6) to the data distribution service, and the publisher writes The subscriber (the entity used to read/digest data) sends the message to the specific memory partition (Partition, such as P1, P2, P3, P4 in Figure 6) in the domain, and the subscriber uses the reader ( An entity used to write/generate data) reads and receives different types of data or applications according to the subscribed topic, where the topic introduces a string set of logical partitions with the memory space, and uses the string set A string name to control the association between the memory space of the data distribution service and specific instances of publishers and subscribers. That is, the data distribution service uses topics as the reference standard for data transmission, and each reader/writer will target The same topic is used to exchange data, and the publishers and subscribers related to each other correspond to the same memory partition. Only then will the subscribers receive data from the corresponding publisher. The message of each topic is the same as the topic name. , data type and quality of service (QoS) policy defined by the data distribution service, and settings are made for the writer, the reader and the participant.

Wherein, the parameters set by the service quality policy are configured by the configuration file XML. Further, the service quality policy may include at least a reliability (Reliability), a sustainability (Durability), a history (History), a data transmission priority (Transport priority) and a topic ownership (ownership), and The present invention is not limited to this.

Among them, through the setting of the persistence capability, the lifespan of the content that can be read (shared) by the subscriber can be determined, making the automated equipment control system 1, 1' more suitable for the development of swarm robots.

In the system architecture of the data distribution service of the above shared memory, the user only needs to manage the application of the data distribution service. In this mode, the domain service will be regarded as an independently executed process, and the data The distribution service program 33 will control the services of all participants participating in the domain. Then, the shared memory Shmem of a specific size can be specified through the configuration file to create or initialize the memory space. In addition, these applications will need to discover each other's existence through the interoperability automatic discovery mechanism (DDSI Interoperability), and will interact with each other, such as domain participants (Participant), writers (Writer), readers Reader, Topic, Quality of Service (QoS) and other information, the amount of information is relatively large, but in this system architecture, through the shared memory mode, all applications share common Services and data indexes, etc., the automatic discovery mechanism service will regard them as the same node and do not require cumbersome exchanges with each other, so a large amount of network bandwidth can be saved. In the shared memory system architecture, each topic node and data will share various services of the data distribution service program 33. In addition, the network layer will share a single network interface IP/Port to send messages and exchange all data. and reference are all performed within the shared memory Shmem, which can effectively improve the operating performance of the system by at least 3 to 5 times.

Therefore, in this system architecture 700 (as shown in FIGS. 4 and 7 ), the robot operating system layer 721 implemented by the robot operating system program 32 and the data distribution service layer 722 implemented by the data distribution service program 33 serve as An intermediary layer 720 between an operating system layer 710 and an application layer 730 uses the data distribution service layer 722 to implement a distributed/asynchronous data exchange mechanism. Data actually exists only once on any computer, but the data distribution service still provides each user with his or her own private representation of the data, such as a relational data representation or Unified Modeling Language (UML) . The application program of the data distribution service and the data distribution service program 33 directly exchange data with each other in the shared memory Shmem, and the application programs refer to the common data instead of copying various data to each other.

The present invention further summarizes the operation method of an automated equipment control system. Please refer to Figure 2, Figure 3 and Figure 8 at the same time. The operation method includes at least the following steps.

Step S810, configure a data distribution service. A data distribution service program 33 of an automated equipment control system 1, 1' specifies a shared database and service quality policy of a data distribution service using a configuration file.

Step S820: Write or read data based on the shared database. Multiple participants (publishers/subscribers) in the domain defined by the data distribution service exchange data for the same topic, and the publishers and subscribers associated with each other correspond to the same memory of the shared database Partition.

Further, step S820 may further include the following steps, please refer to Figure 9:

Step S821: The information published by the publisher is stored in the shared database according to the theme. The information published by the publisher is stored in the memory partition corresponding to the topic in the shared database according to the topic.

Step S822: The subscriber obtains the data from the shared database according to the subscribed topic. The subscriber obtains the data by reading the memory partition corresponding to the topic.

In summary, each subject node and data in the automated equipment control system of this application will share various services of the data distribution service, and the shared memory will be regarded as the same node without cumbersome mutual exchange of various messages. Through this, all Data exchange and reference are performed within the shared memory, effectively achieving the purpose of improving the operating efficiency of the system.

331:Continuing services

332: splicing service

333: Simple Object Access Protocol Service

334: Database management system services

335:DDS transport protocol service

Ta, Tb, Tc, Td, Te: theme

P1, P2, P3, P4: memory partition

Shmem: shared memory

Domain: domain

IP/Port: Network interface

Claims (14)

An operation method of an automated equipment control system. The operation method includes: causing data published by a publisher to be correspondingly stored in a shared database according to a theme. The shared database uses a configuration file to specify a shared memory of a specific size. To create or initialize a memory space; and enable a subscriber to obtain the data in the shared database according to the subscribed topic, where the memory space is used to provide the publisher and the subscriber with sharing the data, Wherein, the topic information is associated with a topic name, a data type and a service quality policy. The service quality policy is configured by the configuration file. The service quality policy includes a reliability, a sustainability and a historical record. , a data transmission priority and a subject ownership. The operation method as described in claim 1, wherein the topic includes a string set of a logical partition, and the string name of the string set is used to determine the relationship between a memory partition and the publisher and the subscriber. association. The operation method as described in claim 1, wherein the configuration file is an extensible markup language configuration file. The operation method as described in request item 1, wherein the publisher and the subscriber are participants in the same domain. An automated equipment control system, which includes: a database unit including a configuration file; a memory unit including a plurality of programs including at least one application program, a robot operating system program and a data distribution service program; and A processor unit is electrically connected to the database unit and the memory unit to execute the programs, configure a data distribution service with the configuration file and create a memory space of a specific size, so that the programs are based on The data distribution service uses the memory space to share services and information, wherein the robot operating system program is used to transfer and exchange data between the programs, and serves as a link between the data distribution service program and the at least one application program. an intermediary layer. The automated equipment control system of claim 5, wherein the at least one application program is an extension software program or a third-party open source software program. The automated equipment control system of claim 5, wherein the configuration file is an extensible markup language configuration file. The automated equipment control system of claim 5, wherein the automated equipment control system further includes a plurality of input and output interfaces, and the input and output interfaces are electrically connected to the processor unit. The automated equipment control system of claim 8, wherein the input and output interfaces include at least one universal serial bus, at least one controller area network, at least two digital input and output ports, at least one Raspberry Pi serial port, and one A serial peripheral interface, at least one serial communication standard, a high-definition multimedia interface, and at least one universal input/output. The automated equipment control system of claim 5, wherein the automated equipment control system further includes at least one expansion interface, and the at least one expansion interface is electrically connected to the processor unit. The automated equipment control system of claim 10, wherein the at least one expansion interface includes at least one of a SATA expansion slot and a PCIe expansion slot. The automated equipment control system of claim 5, wherein the automated equipment control system further includes a network unit, the network unit is electrically connected to the processor unit. The automated equipment control system of claim 5, wherein the automated equipment control system further includes a plurality of peripheral units, and the peripheral units are electrically connected to the processor unit. A system architecture of an automated equipment control system, which includes: an operating system layer; an intermediary layer, which is configured on the operating system layer and communicates with the operating system layer; the intermediary layer includes: a data distribution service, the data distribution The service uses a configuration file to specify a shared memory of a specific size to create or initialize a memory space in a shared database. The data distribution service enables the data published by a publisher to be stored in the share according to a topic. database, and enables a subscriber to obtain the data in the shared database according to the subscribed topic, wherein the memory space is used to provide the publisher and the subscriber to share the data; and a robot operating system, Communicate and exchange data with the operating system layer, and access the shared database based on the data distribution service; and an application layer, configured on the intermediary layer, communicates with the intermediary layer, and the application layer uses the intermediary The layer uses the data distribution service to access the shared database.

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