AN INTERNET-OF-THINGS BASED FRAMEWORK FOR COLLABORATIVE CYBER PHYSICAL TASKS IN MICRO ASSEMBLY

The emergence of Internet-of-Things (IoT) and Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) based principles and technologies holds the potential to support collaborative manufacturing. In this paper, the focus of the research is the design of an Internet of Things (IoT) based Cyber Physical approach for the assembly of micro devices. Micro Devices Assembly (MDA) is an emerging domain involving the assembly of micron sized objects and devices. An advanced collaborative Cyber Physical framework comprising of cyber and physical components linked using the Next Generation Internet has been developed to accomplish a set of MDA life cycle activities which include assembly planning, path planning, Virtual Reality (VR) based assembly analysis, command generation and physical assembly. Genetic algorithm and modified Insertion algorithm-based methods have been proposed to support assembly planning activities. Advanced VR based environments have been designed to support assembly analysis where plans can be proposed, compared and validated. The potential of next generation Global Environment for Network Innovation (GENI) networking technologies has also been explored to support distributed collaborations involving VR based environments. An IoT Test Bed has been built to demonstrate the feasibility of the framework proposed to assemble micro designs. This is the first reported implementation of a comprehensive IoT based cyber physical system in advanced manufacturing.