Enabling connectivity of cyber-physical production systems: A conceptual framework

Inside smart factories, Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) have to be synchronized one with another and with the external world to share information and trigger actions. In this work, the conceptual development of such a network to implement a Smart Factory at the Mini-Factory Laboratory of the Free University of Bolzano is presented. The objective is to set up a framework for an Industrial Internet System (IIS), first by homogenizing and integrating the communication systems of the end-nodes of the laboratory, i.e., sensors, robots, etc., through the necessary hardware and middleware, and second, by constructing a centralized backbone network where all valuable information is collected for further big data analysis.