2006

Stage I

Set up of development platform structure: composition, layout, sensing, security, control, communication, adaptation task- and material flow- oriented design & adapting

Functional analysis. Task & performance specification.

Operational & layout specification. Applied research. Technological development.

Aggregate control design. Applied research for communication and intelligent control solutions.

Fundamental research for Object Oriented modelling of control resources and aggregate manufacturing applications.

Project management. Equipment and material acquisition.

2007

Stage II

Solution development and implementing method for fault-tolerant behaviour of the multi-agent production control structure. Intelligent robot control via visual feedback with feature processing

Fundamental and applied research for SCs backup and data base replication.

Fundamental and applied research for RCs backup in case of breakdown (grace- ful degraded behaviour).

Applied research for inter-controller connection for operational inter-conditioning (mutual excl., synchro.).

Development of the production database and remote access mechanisms.

Testing the fault-tolerance mechanisms. Creating the project's web page. Results dissemination: participation to international conferences & cooperation.

Intelligent robot control via visual feedback with feature processing. Automatic control of the conveyor belt's motion using the DEVS formalism.

2007

Stage III

Material flow description by feature sets extracted from images. Set up of visual geometric measurements. Automatic control of the conveyor belt's motion using the DEVS formalism. Integrating the holons with the hierarchical cell server.

Man-machine graphical, menu driven learning and selection of scalar feature sets for blob recognition. Pattern analysis.

Fundamental and applied research for material description by signature analysis and skeletonization. Result validation by international cooperation.

Development of sets of vision tools for geometry measurements.

Set up of area search and inspection algorithms and programs which use arm-mounted cameras.

Finalizing the laboratory fit out. Termination of equipment purchase. Dissemination of partial research results by papers presentation in international events and organization of Special Session.

Automatic control of the conveyor belt's motion using the DEVS formalism. Integrating the holons with the hierarchical cell server.

2008

Stage IV

Controlling the robots by vision, from stationary and mobile cameras, to condition, track and access parts on stationary and mobile scenes(GVR & AVI).

Applied research for setting up the optimal vision environment for the robots.  Creating a robust, reliable illumination system.

Defining the scene- and robot functions by models for RV cooperation, recognition, locating and collision free part access.

Intelligent robot control via visual feedback with feature processing.

Resource functionality testing.

Dissemination of research results and support actions for technological transfer. Publishing scientific articles in revues and papers in international conferences.

2008

Stage V

Materializing the advanced concept of holonic manufacturing. Integrating machine vision and applied AI in the multi-agent holonic control. Adding fault tolerance to holonic multi-robot control of material conditioning. Dissemination of results, demos, training set up.

Implementing the holonic manufacturing control concept in the multi-robot fault-tolerant system.

Solving the problem of job optimization in a multi-agent production structure (recommendations in normal operating modes).

Activating the fault-tolerant mechanisms for heterarchical control structures (autonomous and cooperative operating mode at break-down).

Installing the holonic control solution in the distributed, multi-agent manufacturing architecture. Validation of the holonic manufacturing control solution.

Dissemination of results. Creating the learning infrastructure for human resource skills development. Integrating the development multi-robot platform in European research & Academic Networks.