A Cyber-Physical System Approach for the Design of a Modular Smart Robotic Cell

This paper presents a novel methodology in the development of robotic cells for industrial applications. The proposed approach exploits the Cyber-Physical System philosophy and concepts, thus making the robotic cell flexible, reconfigurable and adaptable. The final robotic cell is therefore composed by several interconnected embedded systems, exchanging information and cooperating among them for the proper execution of the final requested task. The modular nature and architecture of the described solution makes the cell "smart", in terms of easy reconfiguration and adaptation for different tasks and applications. The presented Smart Robotic Cell has been implemented and tested in a real industrial use-case, validating the flexibility and efficiency of the developed approach, thus confirming the Smart Robotic Cell as one of the main elements of the industrial shopfloor in the Factory of the Future context.