B4: Fog Computing in DS-MSCs

The concept of "software-defined mobile supply chains" entails making factories and production systems mobile so that manufacturing facilities can be established anywhere. Modern manufacturing facilities are created as cyber-physical production systems, which includes numerous sensor-actuator systems connected to the cloud, where they can be guided and controlled. However, cloud-based production systems pose two challenges. First, the processing of the sensor data is very intricate, meaning it can not be easily accelerated and scaled. Second, clouds have to be secured to ensure data and know-how is properly protected.
For these reasons, the concept of fog computing has recently arose. In this reference architecture for distributed software systems, the microcontrollers and gateways located close to the sensor (and thus to the machine) process the data and only send symbolic or anonymized data to the cloud. Fogs form "private near-clouds" and are better protected by constructions from data theft than generalized clouds. Mostly they are organized hierarchically, so that the processing must be done only up to a certain height of the fog hierarchy. As a result, the sensor data processing in the fog gains additional speed. Because of these properties, fogs are considered as a future reference architecture for many applications in "smart environments", especially for cyber-physical production systems.
The assembly of individual sensitive robotic arms was successfully realized by the startup Franka in 2017 on the basis of Emika. In this doctoral project, based on digital twins in a fog, robot arms will be mounted and embedded in a robotic assembly line.

Doctoral Student: WanQi Zhao

First (Main) Supervisor: Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Uwe Aßmann

Second Supervisor: N.N.