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Contents
- Who is RT4ALL?
- Motivation
- What is our solution?
- What problem does our solution solve?
- How does our technology accomplish its goals?
- Future work
RT4ALL (Real Time For All) is a team composed by computer and telecommunication engineers who joined to face the VII Technologic Challenge of ETSIIT, University of Granada, Spain. The developers of the project are:
- Lucía Álvarez González (luciaalvarez.gr@gmail.com / luciaalvarez@correo.ugr.es): Telecommunication Engineer
- Juan Carlos Chaves Puertas (lobolanja@gmail.com / lobolanja@correo.ugr.es) : Computer Hardware Engineer
- Pedro Jesús Torres Barrilado (pedrotoba.1512@gmail.com / pedrotoba@correo.ugr.es): Computer Hardware Engineer
The goal of this challenge is to create a distribuited system teleoperated with the capability of controlling the movement of a robot. Through the use of several sensors and one camera, the design allows recopilate information from the environment. The solution would means an important contribution to the Industrial Internet.
The proposal develeped by RT4ALL to face this challenge is introduced in detail in this wiki. In any case, we encourage the reader to contact us through any of the above emails in order to resolve any doubts that arise.
The industrial revolution is known as Industrial Internet. This is the digitization of industry and other economic sectors, and the aplication of Internet of Things in the production processes. Industrial Internet of Things is based on the concept that smart machines are capable of performing tasks in the industry more efficiently than a human. This allows companies to achieve better results and solve problems early, saving money, time and effort.
The motivation of this project is to contribute to the development of the Industrial Internet, creating an innovative solution that represents a great challenge for the team. Given the potential of RTI technology, we decided to include such technology in our project. This has allowed us to create an environment in which different devices can be connected in a completely transparent way to the user, and therefore controlled remotely through our own software.
The development of this project has been a great challenge for the team since we have used different technologies (web programming, node.js + electron, low level programming, python, sockets, RTI technology, Gstreamer...) environment for Industry 4.0 fully functional and effective. All this has required a previous period of learning.
In an industrial distribuited environment, it is neccessary to comunicate the different hardware and software components which are connected to different networks. Our project consists of make transparent to the user the conection of the devices, independently of the network. For this, we have made use of the technology RTI Connect DDS developed by RTI. Thanks to its architecture which is completely decentralized, applications automatically discover each other and communicate peer-to-peer. Connecxt DDS does not require any centralized message brokers, services or servers. This not only reduces development, integration and maintenance costs, but also eliminate single points of failure.
Moreover, we have developed a software tool that allows the remote control of diferentes distributed operating systems from a server obteining information to the different modules that are intended to manage as well as the possibility to remotely control each machine.
Our tool include an intuitive interface which facilitates the control of the connected devices, offering information that collects of the different sensors of each machine as well as the possibility of obtaining video in streaming of each connected device with camera. In addition, through the interface, the user can move the robot remotly. This interface is scalable and customizable to conform to the user requirement. In this way, this software can be adapted to control different hardware environment, so it is a tool to facilitate different industrial works.
In this proyect we present a use case of our tool with which we demonstrate the potential of our software. For this, we have created a robot with different types of sensors (temperature, humidity ...), fans and a camera to allow to obtain streaming video of the robot remotely and in real time.
Furthermore, we use Ivy IoT Gateway. Ivy is a lower power consumption developed by WhiteWall Energy that allows the integration of Modbus networks and WiFi nodes in industrial environments.
Our solution allows the connection of the different devices automatically and completely transparent for the user, as well as the possibility of remotely obtaining system information in real time. In addition, thanks to the real-time communication of the server with the distributed system, it allows the exchange of orders for the movement of the robot.
We have created adaptable and scalable software in different distributed environments. This prototype shows how we can control and manage a prototype robot that would simulate one or several machines of an industry. With RTI, a peer-to-peer communication is established between all the devices of the robot and with the host that manages it. Through the interface designed, we can obtain information in real time of the robot and its environment, as well as the possibility of remote control.
Furthermore, we have used Ivy to create an local network in order to use another tecnhologies created by current companies that are working full in the advance of Industry 4.0.
Our tecnhology does it by:
- Connecting devices transparently for the user creating a distribuited operating system by using RTI Connext DDS.
- RTI technology for sending and receiving information from sensors.
- Communication for remote control via sockets.
- Implementation of an intuitive GUI for sending orders to the robot. In addition, it shows the information of the environment received through the sensors of the robot as well as receive video in streaming and manage the position of the camera that incorporates the robot.
- Implementation of an own protocol based on Modbus RTU on uart and a frameworks to make easier its use. which allows us to communicate the Raspberry Pi and the different microcontrollers that form the system developed.
So far we have created a basic prototype to demonstrate the philosophy of our proposal as well as the correct operation of it. Given the very satisfactory results we have obtained, it is interesting to continue improving it by implementing more complex systems with more specific functionalities. On the other hand, it is importat to adapt our technology to the current companies. In this context, it is important to:
- Incorporation of new modules used in industries.
- Adapt the communication to the different protocols used by different industries.
- Improve the interface with new functionalities.
- complete the Rt4all protocol, with CRC and more functions that can be included or eliminated depending on each project.
- Modularization and abstraction of the code.