Robot talks to the machine
VDW launches interface standard
Everyone is talking about Industry 4.0, but there is still a lack of practical implementation. One of the reasons for this is the lack of standards for connecting digital machines with each other. The German Machine Tool Builders' Association (VDW) now wants to change this.
If interfaces do not match, the robot and machine cannot agree on how to proceed.
© VDWSpecifically, the VDW has now formulated a flexibly applicable standard for the first time, which should make it easier to integrate robots or workpiece carrier systems into a manufacturing system. This will also be submitted to the ISO technical committee in the coming weeks. "With the standard we have formulated, we are initiating the first globally valid standard for interfaces in automated manufacturing systems," says Dr. Hartmuth Müller, Chairman of the VDW working group "Machine Tool - Automation Interface", which developed the standard (VDMA 34180:2016-03).
Ralf Reines, technical consultant at the VDW: "Companies often fight long battles until their machines can communicate with each other in an automated production chain."
© VDWOnly recently, the WGP (Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft für Produktionstechnik) - an association of leading German professors in the field - warned small and medium-sized companies not to miss out on the revolution of digitized value chains made possible by Industry 4.0. The lack of standards for the networking of production facilities, let alone entire production chains, is not only criticized by scientists. "Companies often fight long battles until their machines can communicate with each other in an automated production chain," says Ralf Reines, technical consultant at the VDW. The problem: "Machines don't understand each other if the interfaces don't match because they are not standardized, just as people can't talk to each other if they don't speak the same language". Depending on the manufacturer, signals such as "Release the workpiece" and "Place the workpiece in the loading station" are named differently and the meaning behind them is not defined in the same way. This is why, for example, a robot cannot necessarily "coordinate" the loading and subsequent processing of the workpieces with the machine to be loaded.
"If all interfaces comply with a standard from the outset, this is an important step towards Industry 4.0," says Dr. Hartmuth Müller from Klingelnberg.
© KlingenbergThe newly created standard is intended to be modularly applicable in order to meet the most diverse requirements - wherever certain workpieces have to be transported from transporting machines to processing machines. A total of three levels and various options can be selected in order to design the standards for specific projects. For example, certain control signals can be added or omitted, depending on whether the processing machine has a loading door protecting the processing area or not. The most important safety-related aspects are also defined in a special safety interface.
In order to guarantee ease of use, the VDW experts have described the standard in an Excel file that can be used to easily filter the signals for the various levels and options.
The formal procedure at ISO starts with a survey to determine whether the standardization project is of international importance. At least four countries must consider the project to be worthy of standardization. If this is the case, work on international standardization will begin. The experts have no doubt that this will happen this year.
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