An overview of current technologies and emerging trends in factory automation

Abstract

In this paper we provide an overview of recent theoretical approaches and technologies that respond to the fundamental challenges of modern factory automation. We classify these major methods and technologies into several groups and, for seven of them - namely: vertical integration of factory automation systems; distributed and decentralised control, smart sensors and actuators in factories; networked control systems and wireless sensors and actuators; autonomy and self-organisation of factories; advanced sensing for factory automation; semantic models of factories; engineering methods of factory automation systems - we report recent research contributions and formulate open technical problems in the domain of modern factory automation.

Keywords:

• factory automation
• manufacturing systems
• vertical integration
• distributed control
• decentralised control
• smart sensors and actuators
• networked control systems
• wireless sensor networks
• autonomous systems
• self-organisation
• advanced sensing
• semantic models
• engineering methods

ORCID

Mariagrazia Dotoli http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1459-3452

Alexander Fay http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1922-654X

Marek Miskowicz http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3737-4690

Carla Seatzu http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2014-352X