The FITMAN “Shop Floor data Collection” Specific Enabler is a collection of modules i.e. Fitman Tag &Trace (FitmanT&T) and Fitman Sensor Networks (FitmanSN) -which can be deployed and used independently; for data acquisition from the shop floor making use of smart objects, in the scope of Internet of Things-oriented Manufacturing Ecosystems. This Specific Enabler is targeted for the Smart Factory domain but will be useful for other domains too, where collection of almost real-time data is an important aspect.
This Specific enabler is based on open source projects like Fosstrak[1] and GSN[2] and it is provided as independent binaries to be deployed and used independently along with source code if required.
The Shop floor Data Collection is dedicated for the collection of data from the shop floor acting as a middleware between the data producers in the shop floor and the data consumers, which are external services or applications. The main entities that interact with this specific enabler are:
- The data producers (which can also be the consumers of events) are supported or integrated into the main system making use of smart object technologies like RFID and sensorial networks.
- The data consumers are various applications and services, which make use of various components of the specific enabler depending of their needs.
At the same time this Specific Enabler also decouples the event producers from events consumers to provide flexibility in the processing of production data and the dispatching mechanism of events, eventually through specific added-value event processing engines like “Secure Event Management” (SEM SE) which might be used in the scenario of FITMAN. Data producers (which can also be the consumers of events) are integrated into the main system making use of smart object technologies like RFID and sensorial networks. Data consumers are various applications and services, which make use of various components of the Shop floor Data Collection as necessity.
Therefore, the main objectives of this SE are to:
- Capture and acquire data from tagged objects (e.g. RFID).
- Capture and acquire data from networks of (wireless) sensors.
[1] https://code.google.com/p/fosstrak/
[2] http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/gsn/
The following figure presents the generic view of the Shop Floor Data Collection (SFDC) SE.
The two main components comprising the SE are:
- Fitman Tag&Trace [FitmanT&T]: This component is based on the open source project Fosstrak. Fosstrak is an open source integrated software platform for the management of the RFID readers and the corresponding events and data where the major software components and tools are web-based. Fosstrak implements the EPC Global Specs. This component is responsible for collection of data from objects in the shop floor with RFID tags.
- Fitman Sensor Network [FitmanSN]: This component is based on Global Sensors Network (GSN) which is the outcome of OpenIoT project. GSN is a middleware (extendible software infrastructure) for rapid deployment and integration of heterogeneous wireless sensor networks. The modules of GSN for data acquisition are utilized in this component.