Engineering models and methods for industrial cell control

This paper is concerned with the engineering, i.e. the designing and making, of industrial cell control systems. The focus is on automated robot welding cells in the shipbuilding industry. The industrial research project defines models and methods for design and implemen-tation of computer based control and monitor-ing systems for production cells. The project participants are The Danish Academy of Technical Sciences, the Institute of Manufacturing Engineering at the Technical University of Denmark and ODENSE STEEL SHIPYARD Ltd.The manufacturing environment and the current practice for engineering of cell control systems has been analysed as well as automation software enablers. A number of problems related to these issues are identified.In order to support engineering of cell control systems by the use of enablers, a generic cell control data model and an architecture has been defined. Further, an engineering methodology is defined. The three elements enablers, architecture and methodology constitutes the Cell Control Engineering concept which has been defined and evaluated through the implementation of two cell control systems for robot welding cells in production at ODENSE STEEL SHIPYARD.It is concluded that cell control technology provides for increased performance in production systems, and that the Cell Control Engineering concept reduces the effort for providing and operating high quality and high functionality cell control solutions for the industry.