A CORBA-based remote monitoring system for factory automation

Supporting rapid response to changing customer requirements, reduction in both time and cost of manufacturing process, and integration within a heterogeneous wide area networked enterprise are necessary to increase worldwide competitiveness in manufacturing. We propose a CORBA based architecture to realize that manufacturing environment. We have developed an ORB for PLC to realize that architecture. And we have developed two prototypes of a remote monitoring system for factory automation, which are a manufacturing line monitoring system and a remote PLC monitoring system which uses a Web browser, to examine feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed architecture. According to experiments with these prototypes, we show the feasibility and effectiveness of our proposed CORBA based architecture.