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An HLA-based distributed simulation for networked manufacturing systems analysis

Journal of Simulation volume 6, pages 237–252 (2012)Cite this article

Abstract

Manufacturing systems can be thought as production networks nodes whose relations have a strong impact on design and analysis of each system. Commercial simulators are already adopted to analyse complex networked systems, but the development of a monolithic model can be too complex or infeasible when a detailed description of the nodes is not available outside the ‘owner’ of the node. Then the problem can be decomposed modelling complex systems with various simulators that interoperate in a synchronized manner. Herein, the integration of simulators is addressed by taking as a reference the High Level Architecture (HLA). This paper proposes modifications to Commercial-off-the-shelf Simulation Package Interoperability Product Development Group protocols and to use patterns of how HLA can be effectively adopted to support Commercial Simulation Package interoperability: a new solution for the synchronous entity passing problem and modifications to the Entity Transfer Specification are presented. The resulting infrastructure is validated and tested over an industrial case.

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Acknowledgements

The research reported in this paper has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement No: NMP2 2010-228595, Virtual Factory Framework (VFF). The authors would like to thank Prof. S.J.E. Taylor for his on-going scientific support and Prof. S. Straßburger for the precious suggestions during the PADS workshop. Authors acknowledge Tenova Pomini for the definition of the industrial case.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Politecnico di Milano, Dipartimento di Ingegneria Meccanica, MI, Italy

    G Pedrielli & T Tolio

  2. Istituto Tecnologie Industriali e Automazione (ITIA), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), MI, Italy

    M Sacco & W Terkaj

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  1. G Pedrielli
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  2. M Sacco
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  3. W Terkaj
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  4. T Tolio
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Correspondence to G Pedrielli.

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Pedrielli, G., Sacco, M., Terkaj, W. et al. An HLA-based distributed simulation for networked manufacturing systems analysis. J Simulation 6, 237–252 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1057/jos.2012.6

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Keywords

  • complex manufacturing systems
  • discrete event simualtion
  • distributed simulation
  • HLA
  • interoperability reference models