Autonomous decentralized manufacturing system using high-speed network with inductive transmission of data and power

This paper introduces an idea of an autonomous decentralized manufacturing system (ADMS), which has the capability of adaptive reconfiguration to the product variations. In ADMS, machines are decentrally controlled by way of common high speed data networks, and the degree of mechanical motion freedom is increased with the use of inductive power and data transmission. The technology subsets required for realizing the field network and inductive couplings are described in this paper. The ADMS is conceptually realized for the automobile production line using the prototypes of the proposed technology subsets.