Automatic Parameter Estimation for Reusable Software Components of Modular and Reconfigurable Cyber-Physical Production Systems in the Domain of Discrete Manufacturing

The main feature of cyber-physical production systems is its adaptability. They adapt quickly to new requirements such as new products or product variants. Nowadays, a bottleneck is the automation system, for which high manual engineering efforts are needed: Today, on-site technicians write and rewrite automation software, configure real-time communication protocols and create system configurations consisting of machine timing, physical dimensions of products, sensitivity, and motor control accelerations and velocities. Cyber-physical production systems often solve this dilemma by relying on reusable software components, which are composed in the overall automation software. However, this solution comes with a price, reusable software components need free parameters to adjust to the individual production configurations. This paper addresses this central research question and presents a novel parameter estimation approach to choose automatically optimal system configurations for cyber-physical production systems. Different scenarios from discrete manufacturing plants are used to evaluate the solution approach.