ACbot: an IIoT platform for industrial robots

Abstract

As the application of Industrial Robots (IRs) scales and related participants increase, the demands for intelligent Operation and Maintenance (O&M) and multi-tenant collaboration rise. Traditional methods could no longer cover the requirements, while the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) has been considered a promising solution. However, there’s a lack of IIoT platforms dedicated to IR O&M, including IR maintenance, process optimization, and knowledge sharing. In this context, this paper puts forward the multi-tenant-oriented ACbot platform, which attempts to provide the first holistic IIoT-based solution for O&M of IRs. Based on an information model designed for the IR field, ACbot has implemented an application architecture with resource and microservice management across the cloud and multiple edges. On this basis, we develop four vital applications including real-time monitoring, health management, process optimization, and knowledge graph. We have deployed the ACbot platform in real-world scenarios that contain various participants, types of IRs, and processes. To date, ACbot has been accessed by 10 organizations and managed 60 industrial robots, demonstrating that the platform fulfills our expectations. Furthermore, the application results also showcase its robustness, versatility, and adaptability for developing and hosting intelligent robot applications.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

IIoT platform / industrial robots / cloud-edge collaboration / intelligent applications

Rui Wang received his MS degree from the School of Mechanical Engineering, Beihang University, China in 2017. He is currently a PhD candidate at the School of Computer Science and Engineering, Beihang University, China. His research interests mainly include cloud computing, IIoT, and time series analysis

Xudong Mou received her BS and MS degrees in the School of Computer Science and Engineering, Beihang University, China in 2017 and 2021, respectively. She is working towards a PhD degree at the School of Computer Science and Engineering, Beihang University, China. Her research interest is time series anomaly detection

Tianyu Wo (Member, IEEE) received his BS and PhD degrees in computer science from Beihang University, China in 2001 and 2008, respectively. He is a professor at the College of Software, Beihang University, China. His current research interests include distributed systems and IoT

Mingyang Zhang received his BE degree from the School of Mechatronics Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, China in 2017. Now he is a PhD candidate in the School of Mechatronics Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, China. His research interests include IIoT and cloud-based process optimization of industrial robots

Yuxin Liu received her BS degree from the School of Electronic Information Engineering, Central South University, China in 2019. She received her MS degree at the School of Computer Science, Beihang University, China in 2022. Her research interest is the knowledge graph

Tiejun Wang received her BS degree from the School of Information Science and Engineering, Shandong Agricultural University, China in 2020. She is currently working towards a PhD degree at the School of Computer Science and Engineering, Beihang University, China. Her research interest is time series analysis

Pin Liu received his PhD degree from the School of Computer Science and Engineering, Beihang University, China in 2022. Currently, he is a lecturer at the School of Information Engineering, China University of Geosciences (Beijing), China. His research interest is time series data augmentation

Jihong Yan is a professor and the Deputy Dean of the School of Mechatronics Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, China. She has led several National Key R&D Programs and NSFC projects. She has published over 150 papers with more than 2000 citations. Her research interests include intelligent manufacturing, IIoT, and integrated optimal operation of manufacturing systems

Xudong Liu is a professor at the School of Computer Science and Engineering, Beihang University, China. He has led several China 863 Programs and government projects. He has published over 100 articles. He holds more than 20 patents. His research interests include software middleware technology, software development methods and tools, large-scale information technology projects, and the application of research and teaching

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Zhejiang Province Key R&D Program of China (2023C01070).

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests or financial conflicts to disclose.

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