COSMOS · Cost-driven Adaptive Factory based on Modular Self-Contained Factory Units

Wind turbines and aeronautic are sectors where Europe is leading the world class competition. To guarantee this competitiveness, their productivity has to be improved. The adoption of an automation strategy is a key factor to increase productivity. In the wind turbine manufacturing, the assembly is one of the core processes. Most of these assembly operations are manual which has the quality of being the most flexible way to do the work. The main objective for COSMOS is the design/development/implementation of a control system for factory management with a flexible, modular and evolvable automation approach which will permit to increase the assembly factory productivity by 20% without losing flexibility, focused on wind turbine assembly process although the solution will be suitable for other sectors. Cost models will be defined to assist in establishing the economically optimum factory’s configuration and automation level. The achievement of the main objective will be obtained by fulfilling the following technical objectives: -Create a factory organisation conception based on intelligent factory units for facilitating the self-adaptation to production changes under a flexible and modular automation configuration basis. -Develop the distributed control system architecture according to such factory organisation. -Develop the service layer infrastructure between control system and equipment involved in production. COSMOS system features: -Autonomous behaviour of the factory units. -Multilayer decentralised control. The control will work in three interconnected levels. -Interoperable connectivity with factory units’ equipment/devices. -Local intelligence (self-adaptation to different parts conditions without human intervention). -Collaboration among equipment/devices to complete specific tasks. COSMOS will be implemented as a pilot installation for the assembly of wind turbines nacelles (most critical and added value part).