Virtual Prototyping of Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems

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Today's manufacturing organizations face a new competitive landscape. The life-cycles of many mass-produced products, including automotive products, are constantly shortening due to frequently changing market demands. Manufacturing systems that provide the ability to produce customized products through flexible processes at reasonably low costs are of vital importance. The concept of Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (RMS) is a recent advance in this regard. RMS is designed for rapid adjustment of production capacity and functionality through layout and equipment reconfiguration in response to new market conditions and new process technology. This research is focused on (1) an integrated approach in systems design and operations control of RMS, (2) reconfigurable supervisory control logic for RMS, (3) the conceptualization and prototyping of Reconfigurable Machine Tools (RMT), and (4) modular design of reconfigurable fixture for machining cylindrical and prismatic part families. Research on RMS/RMT typically involves physical prototypes to validate the interactions between hardware and software components. However, physical prototyping is expensive and time consuming, which often leads to insufficient opportunities for testing various technological enablers of RMS/RMT. In this research, to improve this situation, we plan to use the state of the art virtual prototyping software. The approach is to use the virtual reality engine of such software capable of enacting the laws of rigid body physics and providing virtual models of several standard mechatronic devices in the design and analysis of RMS/RMT. The simulated hardware can be controlled by using virtual sensors and actuators as they would be present in a physical prototype. The various algorithms that will be developed in the proposed research for reconfigurable supervisory control logic for RMS/RMT can be virtually validated.