Service-oriented architecture for the autoconfiguration of real-time ethernet systems

In the context of flexible and agile manufacturing systems, the autoconfiguration capability of devices is very important. Besides other advantages, a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) could support the autoconfiguration by offering several interesting features. The Devices Profile for Web Services and OPC Unified Architecture are promising candidates for a future deployment in industrial automation, due to their specific characteristics. However, resource constraint embedded devices, such as low cost field devices, face particular challenges for an SOA implementation in terms of required memory resources. In this work both technologies are introduced and implemented on embedded devices. The focus is put on autoconfiguration of real-time Ethernets. A comparison and analysis of both solutions, using the discovery process as an example, show their main differences. Finally, the advantages and drawbacks of both approaches are discussed based on the previous findings.