The IDEAS Plug & Produce System

Current major roadmapping efforts have all clearly underlined that true industrial sustainability will require far higher levels of systems’ autonomy and adaptability. In accordance with these recommendations, the Evolvable Production Systems (EPS) has aimed at developing such technological solutions and support mechanisms. Since its inception in 2002 as a next generation of production systems, the concept is being further developed and tested to emerge as a production system paradigm. The essence of evolvability resides not only in the ability of system components to adapt to the changing conditions of operation, but also to assist in the evolution of these components in time. Characteristically, Evolvable systems have distributed control, and are composed of intelligent modules with embedded control. To assist the development and life cycle, a methodological framework is being developed. After validating the process-oriented approach (EC FP6 EUPASS project), EPS now tackles its current major challenge (FP7 IDEAS project) in proving that factory responsiveness can be improved using lighter Multi-Agent technology running on EPS modules (modules with embedded control). This article will detail the particular developments within the IDEAS project, which include the first self re-configuring system demonstration and a new mechatronic architecture.