Mobile monitoring and control framework with active-push and plug-and-play capabilities

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of a novel mobile monitoring and control (MC) framework with active-push and plug-and-play capabilities. This proposed framework is particularly designed to addresses the shortcomings of the traditional factory MC systems in sharing information over the internet, protecting the system security, delivering warning messages, and deploying monitoring points.

Design/methodology/approach

By leveraging web service technology, mobile devices, and wireless communication, this paper describes the methodology and approach for designing a MC server, a wireless monitoring module (WMM), an intelligent v-Machine, two active-push mechanisms, a pocket PC application, and a smart phone application.

Findings

The designed WMM enables the monitoring points to be deployed in a mobile manner. The proposed mobile MC framework (MMCF) can timely detect abnormalities of appliances and equipment and turn off appliances in dangerous situations through WMM. It can also instantly deliver various warning contents to the mobile devices carried by the responsible persons. The v-Machine is built based on virtual metrology (VM) technology and can predict production precision of machined workpieces.

Research limitations/implications

With the successful design and testing of the novel MMCF, this framework can obviously be used for many more applications and developments.

Practical implications

The authors' implement a factory MC system based on the proposed framework and conduct various integration tests on two electric appliances and a practical CNC machine tool in a factory. Testing results shows that the factory MC system works smoothly according the design goals and can overcome the shortcomings of traditional factory MC systems. The MC system also presents good performances, instantly delivering warning contents with a size ranging from 1K bytes to 10M bytes to the users within few seconds.

Social implications

The proposed MMCF exploits various automation technologies to detect equipment's abnormalities, reduce the rate of product defects caused by human errors, reinforce security, prevent accidents, and ensure the safety of operations.

Originality/value

The proposed MMCF can effectively promote existing factory MC systems to achieve the merits of mobile MC, which is a unique contribution of this work, compared to previous studies. The results of this study can be applied to a variety of industrial automation applications, including factory automation and assembly automation.

Citation

Y. Chang, A., Li, Y.-Y., Hung, M.-H. and Yen, T.-F. (2013), "Mobile monitoring and control framework with active-push and plug-and-play capabilities", Assembly Automation, Vol. 33 No. 4, pp. 317-333. https://doi.org/10.1108/AA-10-2012-077