OCEAN

Summary

OCEAN will realise a real-time capable platform for distributed control applications. This platform will enable a dynamic integration of control components that are based on an open specification. Through this a flexible and application specific configuration of control systems will be possible.
The basic idea is to continue the approach of OSACA by adopting its benefits and realising a fundamental improvement on the basis of newly available technologies.

Objectives
The two main objectives of the project are:
1. the definition and realisation of a "Distributed Control System Real-Time Framework" (DCRF) for numerical controls based on standardised communication systems and delivered as open source; the DCRF will be able to host control components in distributed open platforms and will provide a real-time communication API. The DCRF will be based on open source components (e.g. RT-Linux as operating system, RT-CORBA for standardised communication mechanisms) and will be available as open source itself at the end of the project.
2. The definition and realisation of a component based open numerical control reference architecture for machine tools: in order to take advantage of open control systems it is necessary to extend the existing reference architecture and to decompose the monolithic blocks into components with clearly defined interfaces, described in standardised format. The open control reference architecture, will not be delivered as open source but with publicly available new standardised interfaces for motion control components of machine tools which will make use of the DCRF. These interfaces will be published for further input and implementation by users in the field of control techniques. Thus it will become possible to integrate additional functionality and third party software just using the standardised interface description, without any need of adapting interfaces. The component based reference architecture which will be developed in the OCEAN project has to be seen as a starting point for the specification of further control system applications in the future.

Fig.1 shows the structure of the DCRF and motion control components. It is important to underline that components may indifferently reside on the same node or on different hardware nodes of a network.

Figure 1: Distributed Control System Real-Time Framework (DCRF)

OCEAN will first of all analyse existing RT-operating systems pointing out the benefits and deficiencies regarding aspects like real-time behaviour, interfaces and open source availability.
Then suitable lower-level layers (hardware, bus system, RTOS) and the communication platform (RT-CORBA) will be extended and integrated, that they can serve as a distributed real-time framework for the whole control system with all its single components. Adaptations for drivers, I/O access, scheduling connections will be made.
Next step will be the design, implementation and validation of a reference architecture; the first phase of this will deal with motion control base components (HMI, kernel, PLC, kinematics components), which are absolutely mandatory to operate machine tools. The second phase will involve a further subdivision of motion control extension components like filter and process control components, a safety component designed for CNC and a multi-channel manager component.
Eventually, in order to show the achieved results and to demonstrate the applicability of the new DCRF based CNC, five different demonstration objects will be set-up: a 5-axes milling machine, a parallel kinematics machine (PKM), a wood working machine and another milling machine all having different kinematics structures, and a simulated machine tool.

Participants
FIDIA S.p.A. (Italy)
Universitaet Stuttgart (Germany)
Rheinisch Westfaelische Technische Hochschule (Germany)
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium)
HOMAG Holzbearbeitungssysteme AG (Germany)
Fundacion Fatronik (Spain)
Fagor Automation, S. Coop (Spain)
OSAI S.p.A. (Italy)
Goratu Maquinas Herramienta, S.A. (Spain)
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (Italy)