On Distributed Knowledge Bases for Robotized Small-Batch Assembly

The flexibility demands in manufacturing are severe, e.g., for rapid-change-over to new product variants, while robots are flexible machines that potentially can be adapted to a large variety of production tasks. Task definitions such as explicit robot programs are hardly reusable from an application point-of-view. To improve the situation, a knowledge-based approach exploiting distributed declarative information and cloud computing offers many possibilities for knowledge exchange and reuse, and it has the potential to facilitate new business models for industrial solutions. However, there are many unresolved questions yet, e.g., those related to reliability, consistency, or legal responsibility. To investigate some of these issues, different knowledge-based architectures have been prototyped and evaluated by confronting the solution candidates with key application demands. The conclusion is that distributed cloud-based approaches offer many possibilities, but there is still a need for further research and better infrastructure before this approach can become industrially attractive.