An Integrated Smart Manufacturing Platform Powered by Microservices

With the rapid development of the manufacturing industry, traditional control systems can no longer meet the requirements of flexibility, efficiency, and intelligence for smart manufacturing. In order to fully utilize technologies such as microservices and enhance the flexibility of smart manufacturing, we propose a microservice-based architecture integrating sensing, communication, computation, and control, dedicated to achieving integrated management and configuration of the production process. In this architecture, each production stage is designed as an independent microservice, capable of being flexibly deployed in various edge controllers. Therefore, a universal edge controller can simultaneously act as a PLC, router, data acquisition device, and edge server, greatly simplifying the complexity of equipment deployment. The microservice-based integrated architecture not only improves the efficiency of data routing but also helps simplify the integration of new sensors and actuators, making adjustments of production lines more convenient, thereby enhancing the scalability and flexibility of the system. We implemented the proposed architecture based on a validation scenario, and the experimental results demonstrate the enormous development potential of this architecture.