, with the joint cooperation between Linghua , Youjia and Zi Ce Association, took the lead in building a 5G demonstration production line in Taiwan.
text｜Linghua Technology
In recent years, Linghua Technology has actively planned to integrate intelligent manufacturing software and hardware, and has proposed the concept of "square machine smart connection " (Swarm Autonomy) in response to the method of robot collaboration. Dr. Wang Jianhao from Linghua Technology's New Generation Robot Platform Business Office pointed out that "Swarm Autonomy refers to the ability of all machines and equipment in the factory to operate independently and communicate intelligently. It can be said that it is a further expansion of the concept of the Internet of Things, and emphasizes the autonomy of machines and system expansion. This is also the appearance of the interactive operation of various machines and machines in smart factory in in the future!"
How can Linghua enable robots to evolve from one-way information reception to "group smart connection" mutual communication? How to implement such goals as
Swarm Autonomy? The key is the "Data Distribution Service" (DDS) communication technology. Through this technology, Linghua successfully allows machines to transmit data in real time and respond quickly, solving the parallel, transparent and real-time communication needs between machines.
Linghua's robot controller ROScube integrates ROS 2 robot operating system , and uses Linghua's DDS by default. Dr. Wang Jianhao said that DDS is a technology introduced by Linghua after acquiring British company PrismTech in 2015. In the past, it was mainly used in the military aerospace field, greatly improving the shortcomings of the traditional master-slave (Client/Server) architecture. It adopts a point-to-point and distributed communication with a publish/subscribe (Pub/Sub) architecture, which has excellent stability and reliability. It is an middleware . Traditional factories do not need to spend a lot of money when importing, nor do they have to replace existing hardware devices.
However, in the past, the market was not popular because of the high technical threshold of DDS. However, after the next-generation robot operating system (ROS 2) included DDS into its communication layer in 2017, the application threshold of DDS was greatly reduced, allowing more people to easily take advantage of the benefits brought by distributed communication.
creates the most real-time communication results! DDS combined with 5G to improve the response speed of robots
Dr. Wang Jianhao shared that although the middleware of DDS can be used for different underlying communication hardware, how to "real-time communication" between heterogeneous devices such as autonomous mobile robots to automated production lines must rely on the high reliability and low latency characteristics of 5G! And how can DDS technology be successfully combined with 5G in Taiwan? Linghua found a group of experts with rich forward-looking technology experience to assist in the implementation of the application. Wang Deren, the Advanced Communication System Center of
, said, "DDS has a QoS (quality of service) mechanism, which can ensure the quality of data transmission. It is an ideal combination with 5G and can provide good connection from the communication layer to the data layer."
DDS is an intermediary layer, which can be used in a manufacturing environment where wired/wireless or multiple wireless technologies coexist. It also has high reliability characteristics. Combined with 5G's low latency and high-speed transmission, it will greatly improve the sensitivity and reaction speed of automation equipment such as robots.
imports 5G+AMR/AOI/MR three major applications to improve the yield, efficiency, and shutdown issues of manufacturing
At present, Linghua, Youjia and Zicehui have built three major applications: AMR (unmanned transport vehicle), AOI (automatic optical inspection), and AR (amplified reality) smart glasses at Hsinchu Hukou Iwata Yujia Factory, which not only improves the yield by 15%, but also reduces the cost by 20%.
5G combined with DDS technology has been actually built in the industrial-grade spray gun production line in the Iwata Yoga factory in Hukou, Hsinchu. It has created a real 5G future factory from three major applications: AMR (unmanned transport vehicle), AOI (automatic optical inspection), and MR (AR/VR hybrid reality) smart glasses.
First of all, taking the most important "efficiency" of smart factories as an example, manual handling may have had some problems of being absent or needing rest, but the deployment of AMR will be able to meet the needs of future light-off factories. In addition, 5G+DDS has excellent capacity expansion, and the handling route can be quickly adjusted according to different production processes, greatly improving production flexibility. General Manager Lin Qinyu shared that if it is applied in a larger field and more AMRs at the same time in the future, it will better highlight the benefits of 5G+DDS.
At the same time, "yield rate" is also one of the indicators that cannot be ignored while pursuing efficiency. In the past, factories mostly conducted product testing by manual means, but often there were unstable detection quality and even data input errors. At present, Youjia used the AOI machine vision equipment equipped with AI technology to detect spray gun water stains. Through 5G, it quickly achieved image transmission and image selection and adjustment of optical instruments. Not only did the yield increase by 15%, but it also eliminated the opportunity of human and data errors, reducing production costs by 20%.
Furthermore, "accident shutdown" is a major hidden cost in manufacturing production. For example, due to the epidemic this year, due to the lack of mobile phones or operation and maintenance manufacturers, they cannot help solve the problem of machine shutdown. Zi Ce will use the application of "MR glasses" to help Youjia establish remote support services capabilities. General Manager Lin Qinyu explained, "When there is a problem with the client machine, the on-site personnel can use MR glasses to transmit the image back to our technicians, and then use the interpretation of the machine parameters to solve the customer problem as soon as possible."
, with the joint cooperation of Linghua, Youjia and Zi Ce Association, took the lead in building a 5G demonstration production line in Taiwan. In fact, the application of 5G combined with DDS in smart factories is still in its inception even around the world.
Dr. Wang Jianhao also agrees that the scope of smart factories is very large and cannot be completed by a company alone. It is necessary to integrate suppliers of real-time software and hardware technology platforms such as Intel, as well as sensor and system integration operators, and Youjia, and other partners who are willing to invest with end users and other practical applications to establish a complete smart factory ecosystem.
, and Linghua will also develop a software and hardware integration solution for ROS 2/DDS combined with 5G technology. I believe that in the future, whether it is smart factories, smart cities or self-driving cars, there will be more point-to-point communication needs, and these needs can be assisted by Linghua's controller to accelerate development!
