Event-Driven Interoperable Manufacturing Ecosystem for Energy Consumption Monitoring

• Main Authors: Andre Dionisio Rocha, Nelson Freitas, Duarte Alemão, Magno Guedes, Renato Martins, José Barata
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-06-01
• Series: Energies
• Subjects: Apache Kafka; cyber-physical production systems; energy efficiency; Industry 4.0; interoperability; smart manufacturing
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/12/3620

Industrial environments are heterogeneous systems that create challenges of interoperability limiting the development of systems capable of working collaboratively from the point of view of machines and software. Additionally, environmental issues related to manufacturing systems have emerged during the last decades, related to sustainability problems faced in the world. Thus, the proposed work aims to present an interoperable solution based on events to reduce the complexity of integration, while creating energetic profiles for the machines to allow the optimization of their energy consumption. A publish/subscribe-based architecture is proposed, where the instantiation is based on Apache Kafka. The proposed solution was implemented in two robotic cells in the automotive industry, constituted by different hardware, which allowed testing the integration of different components. The energy consumption data was then sent to a Postgres database where a graphical interface allowed the operator to monitor the performance of each cell regarding energy consumption. The results are promising due to the system’s ability to integrate tools from different vendors and different technologies. Furthermore, it allows the possibility to use these developments to deliver more sustainable systems using more advanced solutions, such as production scheduling, to reduce energy consumption.