Cell Control Engineering

The engineering process of creating cell control systems is described, and a Cell Control Engineering (CCE) concept is defined. The purpose is to assist people, representing different disciplines in the organisation, to implement cell controllers by addressing the complexity of having many systems in physically and logically different and changing manufacturing environments. The defined CCE concept combines state-of-the-art of commercially available enabling technologies for automation system software development, generic cell control models and guidelines for the complete engineering process. It facilitates the understanding of the task and structure of cell controllers and uses this knowledge directly in the implementation of the system. By applying generic models CCE facilitates reuse of software components and maintenance of applications. In many enterprises, software makes up an increasing part of any production installation and in addition the software element is often very critical as it is the integrating, controlling and co-ordinating system component. As such, a CCE concept providing high quality and high functionality as well as flexibility is an important aspect of a company's automation strategy. The concept has been validated and verified at Odense Steel Shipyard Ltd. in several robotic arc welding systems in the production using an application enabler, UNIX, X, SQL and (wireless) Ethernet. Integration with off-line programming, production planning, monitoring and maintenance has been achieved resulting in increased utilisation of the capability and capacity of the robot systems.