scispace - formally typeset
Search or ask a question

Showing papers on "System integration published in 2009"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is argued that the level of information system integration fosters the four design characteristics that make up an enabling approach to management control, and each of these in turn is related to both perceived system success and business unit performance.
Abstract: The literature has demonstrated the complex relationship between information system integration approaches, such as Enterprise Resource Planning systems, and management control. In this paper, we begin our analysis by focussing on just one aspect of information system integration, namely in terms of data architecture, commonly referred to as the single database concept. We argue that whilst this particular aspect of integration should be related to perceived system success, the variety of ways in which information might be drawn on in practice means it provides no strong basis for predicting a link to business unit performance. Instead, building on Adler and Borys [Adler, P., & Borys, B. (1996). Two types of bureaucracy: Enabling and coercive. Administrative Science Quarterly, 41 (1), 61–90] we argue that the level of information system integration fosters the four design characteristics that make up an enabling approach to management control. Each of these in turn is related to both perceived system success and business unit performance. We present PLS analysis of survey data collected from 169 managers that broadly supports these expectations.

395 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: 10 universal principles of successfully integrated healthcare systems that may be used by decision-makers to assist with integration efforts are identified and define key areas for restructuring and allow organizational flexibility and adaptation to local context.
Abstract: Integrated health systems are considered part of the solution to the challenge of sustaining Canada's healthcare system. This systematic literature review was undertaken to guide decision-makers and others to plan for and implement integrated health systems. This review identified 10 universal principles of successfully integrated healthcare systems that may be used by decision-makers to assist with integration efforts. These principles define key areas for restructuring and allow organizational flexibility and adaptation to local context. The literature does not contain a one-size-fits-all model or process for successful integration, nor is there a firm empirical foundation for specific integration strategies and processes.

364 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Examples of innovations are identified that will lead to smaller, faster, cheaper optical biosensor systems with capacity to provide effective and actionable information.
Abstract: Optical biosensors have begun to move from the laboratory to the point of use. This trend will be accelerated by new concepts for molecular recognition, integration of microfluidics and optics, simplified fabrication technologies, improved approaches to biosensor system integration, and dramatically increased awareness of the applicability of sensor technology to improve public health and environmental monitoring. Examples of innovations are identified that will lead to smaller, faster, cheaper optical biosensor systems with capacity to provide effective and actionable information.

226 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
S. Izza1
TL;DR: This paper constitutes a general survey on integration of industrial information systems, and aims to overview the main approaches that can be used in the context of industrial enterprises either for syntactic or semantic integration issues.
Abstract: Nowadays, integration of enterprise information systems constitutes a real and growing need for most enterprises, especially for large and dynamic industrial ones. It constitutes the main approach to dealing with heterogeneity that concerns the multiple software applications that make up information systems. This paper constitutes a general survey on integration of industrial information systems, and aims to overview the main approaches that can be used in the context of industrial enterprises either for syntactic or semantic integration issues. In particular, this paper focuses on some semantics-based approaches that promote the use of ontologies, and especially the use of OWL-S service ontology.

115 citations


Proceedings ArticleDOI
30 Oct 2009
TL;DR: The available options in 3D IC design and manufacturing have different impact on the cost of a 3D System-on-Chip and the cost effectiveness of different technology solutions is demonstrated using the IMEC 3D cost model.
Abstract: The available options in 3D IC design and manufacturing have different impact on the cost of a 3D System-on-Chip. Using the 3D cost model developed at IMEC, the cost of different system integration options is analyzed and the cost effectiveness of different technology solutions is demonstrated. The cost model is based on the IMEC 3D integration process flows and includes the cost of manufacturing equipment, fabrication facilities, personnel, and materials. Using the IMEC 3D cost model, the cost of various 3D stacking strategies is compared to single die (i.e. 2D) integration. In addition, the effect on cost of different Through-Silicon-Via (TSV) manufacturing technologies is evaluated. The effectiveness of different 3D testing strategies and their impact on system cost is also investigated.

102 citations


Proceedings ArticleDOI
13 Apr 2009
TL;DR: A custom sensor interface board including specialized sensors and redundancy features for end-to-end data validation is presented, including a best-in-class average power consumption considerably exceeding the lifetime requirement.
Abstract: The PermaSense project has set the ambitious goal of gathering real-time environmental data for high-mountain permafrost in unattended operation over multiple years. This paper discusses the specialized sensing and data recovery architecture tailored to meet the precision, reliability and durability requirements of scientists utilizing the data for model validation. We present a custom sensor interface board including specialized sensors and redundancy features for end-to-end data validation. Aspects of high-quality data acquisition, design for reliability by strict separation of operating phases and analysis of energy efficiency are discussed. The system integration using the Dozer protocol scheme achieves a best-in-class average power consumption of 148µA considerably exceeding the lifetime requirement.

101 citations


Proceedings ArticleDOI
23 Jun 2009
TL;DR: This paper introduces the concept of the “Automation Service Bus” (ASB) based on technical and semantic integration concepts for general software engineering tools and systems and discusses the state of the art, innovation benefits and limitations, and derive research issues for further work.
Abstract: Production systems will become increasingly complex to handle flexible business processes and systems. Engineering systems and tools from several sources have to cooperate for building agile component-based systems. While there are approaches for the technical integration of component-based industrial automation systems, there is only little work on the effective and efficient integration of engineering tools and systems along the automation systems lifecycle. In this paper we introduce the concept of the “Automation Service Bus” (ASB) based on technical and semantic integration concepts for general software engineering tools and systems. Based on real-world use cases from automation systems engineering we discuss the state of the art, innovation benefits and limitations of the ASB concept, and derive research issues for further work.

86 citations


ReportDOI
01 Jul 2009
TL;DR: In this article, the integration costs of wind power generation can be accurately compared with alternative generation technologies, and the authors propose a method to calculate integration costs for wind power systems, which is important so that wind power can be fairly compared with other technologies.
Abstract: Accurately calculating integration costs is important so that wind generation can be fairly compared with alternative generation technologies.

86 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper identifies and measures the various business value benefits that accrue as a result of implementing and integrating large-scale enterprise information systems and presents a general framework for capturing the actual tangible and intangible benefits of enterprise information system installation and integration in a clinical context.
Abstract: This paper identifies and measures the various business value benefits that accrue as a result of implementing and integrating large-scale enterprise information systems. Specifically, we look at the integration of electronic medical records for all patients with the radiology information system and a picture archiving and communication system at a regional medical center. Our work is among the first to carefully study and analyze the impact of enterprise information systems at a large-scale service organization that produces intangible outputs-health. It extends the literature on information economics by quantifying the benefits in process dynamics as a source of ongoing firm-level performance improvements. The key dimensions of measurements include financial revenues, operating lead times, and subjective satisfaction levels by the clinical staff and by the referring physicians. Analyses of longitudinal data suggest that performance levels along a key metric-clinical process lead time-showed a significant improvement immediately after the deployment and integration of the systems. The evidence reveals that performance kept improving for the following 12 months at an impressive learning rate of 63 percent. Moreover, the reported satisfaction level after installation was higher among referring physicians who actively used the full spectrum of technological functionalities at their own clinics or at the hospital's site. Finally, we present a general framework for capturing the actual tangible and intangible benefits of enterprise information systems installation and integration in a clinical context.

74 citations


Proceedings ArticleDOI
24 Aug 2009
TL;DR: This work develops compositional techniques for automated scheduling of partitions in a distributed real-time avionics system and proposes a principled approach for scheduling ARINC-653 partitions that should facilitate system integration.
Abstract: ARINC specification 653-2 describes the interface between application software and underlying middleware in a distributed real-time avionics system. The real-time workload in this system comprises of partitions, where each partition consists of one or more processes. Processes incur blocking and preemption overheads and can communicate with other processes in the system. In this work we develop compositional techniques for automated scheduling of such partitions and processes. At present, system designers manually schedule partitions based on interactions they have with the partition vendors. This approach is not only time consuming, but can also result in under utilization of resources. In contrast, the technique proposed in this paper is a principled approach for scheduling ARINC-653 partitions and therefore should facilitate system integration.

65 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors deal with the thermo-mechanical reliability of microelectronic components and systems and methods to analyse and predict it, the latter promoting the field of nano-reliability for future packaging challenges in advanced electronics system integration.
Abstract: Due to the rapid development of IC technology the traditional packaging concepts are making a transition into more complex system integration techniques in order to enable the constantly increasing demand for more functionality, performance, miniaturisation and lower cost. These new packaging concepts (as e.g. system in package, 3D integration, MEMS-devices) will have to combine smaller structures and layers made of new materials with even higher reliability. As these structures will more and more display nano-features, a coupled experimental and simulative approach has to account for this development to assure design for reliability in the future. A necessary “nano-reliability” approach as a scientific discipline has to encompass research on the properties and failure behaviour of materials and material interfaces under explicit consideration of their micro- and nano-structure and the effects hereby induced. It uses micro- and nano-analytical methods in simulation and experiment to consistently describe failure mechanisms over these length scales for more accurate and physically motivated lifetime prediction models. This paper deals with the thermo-mechanical reliability of microelectronic components and systems and methods to analyse and predict it. Various methods are presented to enable lifetime prediction on system, component and material level, the latter promoting the field of nano-reliability for future packaging challenges in advanced electronics system integration.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A holonic control architecture and implementing issues for agile job shop assembly with networked intelligent robots, based on the dynamic simulation of material processing and transportation, is described and two solutions for production planning are proposed.

01 Jul 2009
TL;DR: A realistic vision to the concept of the Cyber-Physical Internet (CPI) is provided, its design requirements are discussed and the limitations of the current networking abstractions to fulfill these requirements are presented.
Abstract: When the Internet was born, the purpose was to interconnect computers to share digital data at large-scale. On the other hand, when embedded systems were born, the objective was to control system components under real-time constraints through sensing devices, typically at small to medium scales. With the great evolution of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT), the tendency is to enable ubiquitous and pervasive computing to control everything (physical processes and physical objects) anytime and at a large-scale. This new vision gave recently rise to the paradigm of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). In this position paper, we provide a realistic vision to the concept of the Cyber-Physical Internet (CPI), discuss its design requirements and present the limitations of the current networking abstractions to fulfill these requirements. We also debate whether it is more productive to adopt a system integration approach or a radical design approach for building large-scale CPS. Finally, we present a sample of realtime challenges that must be considered in the design of the Cyber-Physical Internet.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In sum, such service systems as healthcare are indeed complex, especially due to the uncertainties associated with the human-centered aspects of these systems, and the system complexities can be dealt with methods that enhance system integration and adaptation.
Abstract: Healthcare is indeed a complex service system, one requiring the technobiology approach of systems engineering to underpin its development as an integrated and adaptive system. In general, healthcare services are carried out with knowledge-intensive agents or components which work together as providers and consumers to create or co-produce value. Indeed, the engineering design of a healthcare system must recognize the fact that it is actually a complex integration of human-centered activities that is increasingly dependent on information technology and knowledge. Like any service system, healthcare can be considered to be a combination or recombination of three essential components — people (characterized by behaviors, values, knowledge, etc.), processes (characterized by collaboration, customization, etc.) and products (characterized by software, hardware, infrastructures, etc.). Thus, a healthcare system is an integrated and adaptive set of people, processes and products. It is, in essence, a system of systems which objectives are to enhance its efficiency (leading to greater interdependency) and effectiveness (leading to improved health). Integration occurs over the physical, temporal, organizational and functional dimensions, while adaptation occurs over the monitoring, feedback, cybernetic and learning dimensions. In sum, such service systems as healthcare are indeed complex, especially due to the uncertainties associated with the human-centered aspects of these systems. Moreover, the system complexities can only be dealt with methods that enhance system integration and adaptation.

01 Apr 2009
TL;DR: Much of the work has focused on the use of a high accuracy Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), which is an inertial sensors block without navigation solution output, and hence, this research area is also reviewed in this paper.
Abstract: Significant developments and technical trends in the area of navigation systems are reviewed. In particular, the integration of the Global Positioning System (GPS) and Inertial Navigation System (INS) has been an important development in modern navigation. The review concentrates also on the analysis, investigation, assessment and performance evaluation of existing integrated navigation systems of accuracy, performance, low cost and all the issues that aid in optimizing their operating efficiency. The integration of GPS and INS has been successfully used in practice during the past decades. However, much of the work has focused on the use of a high accuracy Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), which is an inertial sensors block without navigation solution output, and hence, this research area is also reviewed in this paper.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present an innovation perspective on the renewable energy deployment process by introducing the innovation value-added chain (IVC) framework to evaluate the impact of a new innovation on the various stakeholders and players in the development and deployment processes.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: An extension of the previous work on a genuinely plug-n-play modular microfluidic system is presented for designing and building customized multidimensional (planar, three-dimensional (3D) and their combinations), as well as for better system integration by allowing direct plug-in of active components such as micropumps.
Abstract: An extension of our previous work on a genuinely plug-n-play modular microfluidic system is presented for designing and building customized multidimensional (planar, three-dimensional (3D) and their combinations) microfluidic systems as well as for better system integration by allowing direct plug-in of active components such as micropumps.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a functional analogy relating energy and data storage is derived, where a cache control that coordinates the operation of a multilevel storage consisting of complementary capacity and access-oriented storage technologies is designed.
Abstract: Energy storage is an enabling technology for power system integration of renewable sources, while data storage enables computer system integration. In this paper, a functional analogy relating energy and data storage is derived. Battery or hydrogen storage can provide large energy capacity similar to a hard disk providing large data capacity. Supercapacitors or flywheels provide fast and frequent access to cache energy similar to the computer's RAM providing fast and frequent access to data. In analogy to computer engineering, a cache control that coordinates the operation of a multilevel storage consisting of such complementary capacity and access-oriented storage technologies is designed. It is illustrated how for an industrial distributed energy system with renewable generation, local load, fueling station, and connections to the electricity and gas distribution networks, the cache control provides energy management to support a modular plug-and-play-like system integration. The benefit of the analogy in education is evaluated on a representative sample of electrical engineering students at the University of Washington. While familiar with computing, students do not typically have the same level of exposure to power engineering. The understanding of distributed energy systems concepts is shown to improve thanks to this bridging analogy between computer and power engineering.

01 Jan 2009
TL;DR: It is shown how model transformation techniques can be employed to derive initial domain-specific models for the subsequent domain- specific development and to propagate domain-spanning relevant changes that may occur between those models.
Abstract: The development of mechatronic systems demands the close collaboration of engineers from different domains. In the course of the development, this leads to the creation of a number of separate, but interdependent models which capture the domain-specific system aspects. Without harmonizing the domain-specific development processes, inconsistencies between the domain-specific models are likely to occur. If these inconsistencies remain undetected, the system integration will fail, which is leading to increased development time and costs. As a first step to prevent these problems, we propose a cross-domain system specification in the early conceptual design phase. Furthermore, as the novel contribution of this paper, we show how model transformation techniques can be employed to, firstly, derive initial domain-specific models for the subsequent domain-specific development and, secondly, to propagate domain-spanning relevant changes that may occur between those models. We show how the domain-spanning relevance of changes may be detected automatically and we discuss where expert decisions are indispensable. We implemented the approach in our development environment.

Dissertation
22 Oct 2009
TL;DR: A method for the semantic integration of service-oriented applications that allows system integrators (both domain experts and software developers) to address only a limited set of concerns in a series of design steps.
Abstract: The integration of enterprise applications is an extremely complex problem since the most applications have not been designed to work with other applications. That is, they have different information models, do not share common state, and do not consult each other when updating their states. Unfortunately, domain experts, who have the required knowledge to resolve the mismatches between the applications, are typically not IT experts. Their expertise is only used in the very early stages of integration projects, namely, in the requirements elicitation stage. This makes the gap between business integration requirements and the software implementation of the integration solution wide, which, in turn, additionally complicates the integration process and often leads to the realization of solutions that work incorrectly. The work presented in this thesis makes contributions in the area of Enterprise Application Integration. We propose a method for the semantic integration of service-oriented applications. The key feature of the method is that semantically-rich service models, at different levels of abstraction, are employed to build flexible integration solutions. The method allows system integrators (both domain experts and software developers) to address only a limited set of concerns in a series of design steps. In addition, the proposed method supports handling of changes in the implementation technology and integration requirements. Finally, integration solutions produced by the method can be formally verified for correctness using automatic reasoners.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, grid codes for grid connection to the distribution network are defined that require grid-supportive behavior from PV systems and real network integration by providing ancillary services for system operation is the aim of these new measures in Germany.
Abstract: Germany is the country with the largest installed PV capacity in the world. As a result, Germany needs to be one of the first countries to look at adequate network integration. To tackle the challenges of the power system with regard to high PV penetration in the future, incentive systems are already formed and prepared that go one step further with regard to system integration. Also, grid codes for grid connection to the distribution network are defined that require grid-supportive behavior from PV systems. Real network integration by providing ancillary services for system operation is the aim of these new measures in Germany. Integration studies with different perspectives are performed in Germany.

Book
28 Aug 2009
TL;DR: FireSAT End-to-End Case Study: A Parable of Space Systems Engineering in Seven Parts and Technical Direction and Management: The Systems Engineering Management Plan (SEMP in Action.
Abstract: 1 Space Systems Engineering 2 Stakeholder Expectations and Requirements Definition 3 Concept of Operations and System Operational Architecture 4 Engineering and Managing System Requirements 5 System Functional and Physical Partitioning 6 Decision Making 7 Lifecycle Cost Analysis 8 Technical Risk Management 9 Product Implementation 10 System Integration 11 Verification and Validation 12 Product Transition 13 Plan and Manage the Technical Effort 14 Technical Direction and Management: The Systems Engineering Management Plan (SEMP) in Action 15 Manage Interfaces 16 Manage Configuration 17 Manage Technical Data 18 Technical Assessment and Reviews 19 FireSAT End-to-End Case Study: A Parable of Space Systems Engineering in Seven Parts

ReportDOI
01 Mar 2009
TL;DR: The Wind2H2 system is fully functional and continues to gather performance data as mentioned in this paper, and the specifications of the equipment (electrolyzers, compressor, hydrogen storage tanks, and the hydrogen fueled generator) are summarized.
Abstract: The Wind2H2 system is fully functional and continues to gather performance data. In this report, specifications of the Wind2H2 equipment (electrolyzers, compressor, hydrogen storage tanks, and the hydrogen fueled generator) are summarized. System operational experience and lessons learned are discussed. Valuable operational experience is shared through running, testing, daily operations, and troubleshooting the Wind2H2 system and equipment errors are being logged to help evaluate the reliability of the system.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Key to the system's usability is its direct exploitation of semantics, which gives individual components knowledge of their own functionality and allows them to interoperate seamlessly, removing many of the existing barriers and bottlenecks from standard bioinformatics tasks.
Abstract: In the biological sciences, the need to analyse vast amounts of information has become commonplace. Such large-scale analyses often involve drawing together data from a variety of different databases, held remotely on the internet or locally on in-house servers. Supporting these tasks are ad hoc collections of data-manipulation tools, scripting languages and visualisation software, which are often combined in arcane ways to create cumbersome systems that have been customised for a particular purpose, and are consequently not readily adaptable to other uses. For many day-to-day bioinformatics tasks, the sizes of current databases, and the scale of the analyses necessary, now demand increasing levels of automation; nevertheless, the unique experience and intuition of human researchers is still required to interpret the end results in any meaningful biological way. Putting humans in the loop requires tools to support real-time interaction with these vast and complex data-sets. Numerous tools do exist for this purpose, but many do not have optimal interfaces, most are effectively isolated from other tools and databases owing to incompatible data formats, and many have limited real-time performance when applied to realistically large data-sets: much of the user's cognitive capacity is therefore focused on controlling the software and manipulating esoteric file formats rather than on performing the research. To confront these issues, harnessing expertise in human-computer interaction (HCI), high-performance rendering and distributed systems, and guided by bioinformaticians and end-user biologists, we are building reusable software components that, together, create a toolkit that is both architecturally sound from a computing point of view, and addresses both user and developer requirements. Key to the system's usability is its direct exploitation of semantics, which, crucially, gives individual components knowledge of their own functionality and allows them to interoperate seamlessly, removing many of the existing barriers and bottlenecks from standard bioinformatics tasks. The toolkit, named Utopia, is freely available from http://utopia.cs.man.ac.uk/ .

Book
19 Nov 2009
TL;DR: The authors address the fundamental precepts at the core of SoS, which uses human heuristics to model complex systems, providing a scientific rationale for integrating independent, complex systems into a single coordinated, stabilized, and optimized one.
Abstract: Apply NASA SoS Innovations to Your Own Work From aeronautics and manufacturing to healthcare and disaster management, systems engineering (SE) now focuses on designing applications that ensure performance optimization, robustness, and reliability while combining an emerging group of heterogeneous systems to realize a common goal. Use SoS to Revolutionize Management of Large Organizations, Factories, and Systems Intelligent Control Systems with an Introduction to System of Systems Engineering integrates the fundamentals of artificial intelligence and systems control in a framework applicable to both simple dynamic systems and large-scale system of systems (SoS). For decades, NASA has used SoS methods, and major manufacturersincluding Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, Northrop-Grumman, Raytheon, BAE Systemsnow make large-scale systems integration and SoS a key part of their business strategies, dedicating entire business units to this remarkably efficient approach. Simulate Novel Robotic Systems and ApplicationsTranscending theory, this book offers a complete and practical review of SoS and some of its fascinating applications, including: Manipulation of robots through neural-based network control Use of robotic swarms, based on ant colonies, to detect mines Other novel systems in which intelligent robots, trained animals, and humans cooperate to achieve humanitarian objectives Training engineers to integrate traditional systems control theory with soft computing techniques further nourishes emerging SoS technology. With this in mind, the authors address the fundamental precepts at the core of SoS, which uses human heuristics to model complex systems, providing a scientific rationale for integrating independent, complex systems into a single coordinated, stabilized, and optimized one. They provide readers with MATLAB code, which can be downloaded from the publisher's website to simulate presented results and projects that offer practical, hands-on experience using concepts discussed throughout the book.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: An open and unified integration environment is provided by the analytic system (AS), making it possible for all kinds of software resources to be made readily accessible.
Abstract: Based on the research project entitled ‘Data Collection and Decision Support System for Hydropower Dam Construction’ sponsored by the National Development and Reform Commission of China, this paper puts forward a multilayer architecture and a support system for the knowledge portal utilizing web services and J2EE while offering a method for integrating existing resources. The purpose for this system is to help the China Gezhouba Group Corporation (CGGC) manage the construction of a large-scale hydropower dam. Through the interoperability in distributed environment, software integration technology and heterogeneous system integration, the interoperability of heterogeneous systems is realized by the enterprise application integration (EAI). In this project, an open and unified integration environment is provided by the analytic system (AS), making it possible for all kinds of software resources to be made readily accessible. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The event-driven approach to business process integration can supplement the service-oriented enterprise architecture by facilitating real-time event processing and distributed service coordination.

Proceedings ArticleDOI
13 Jul 2009
TL;DR: An architecture supporting ad-hoc composition of pervasive services, an open-source framework that implements it, and the key design principles behind it are presented.
Abstract: We present an architecture supporting ad-hoc composition of pervasive services, an open-source framework that implements it, and the key design principles behind it. The architecture focuses on direct human interaction, supporting combination of devices and services that are not explicitly designed to work together. The focus is on local networks, but extension is possible to wide area networks, interconnecting several local networks. The information about how services are connected and coordinated is collected in a new construct called assemblies. Separating this information from the services themselves allows combination of existing services in new creative ways without changing them. Assemblies can provide new services and in this way be organized hierarchically. The assembly makes the architecture of a pervasive system explicit, providing an overview understandable to users. Discovery and connections across different network technologies is supported. The architecture has been used for applications in large scale networks, and offers mechanisms useful for system integration in general.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Two of the most interesting service-oriented architectures (SOA) available are described and analyses, which exhibit characteristics that are well adapted to industrial robotics cells and show clearly that using integrations schemes based on SOA reduces system integration time and are more adapted toindustrial robotic cell system integrators.
Abstract: Integration of equipment in industrial robot cells is to an increasing part involved with interfacing modern Ethernet technologies and low-cost mass produced devices, such as vision systems, laser cameras, force-torque sensors, soft-PLCs, digital pens, pocket-PCs, etc. This scenario enables integrators to offer powerful and smarter solutions, more adapted to small and medium enterprises (SMEs), capable of integrating process knowledge and interface better with humans. Nevertheless, programming all these devices efficiently requires too much specific knowledge about the devices, their hardware architectures and specific programming languages, details about system communication low-level protocols, and other tricky details at the system level. To address these issues, this paper describes and analyses two of the most interesting service-oriented architectures (SOA) available, which exhibit characteristics that are well adapted to industrial robotics cells. To compare, discuss and evaluate their programming features and applicability a test bed was specially designed, and the two SOA are fully implemented to program the test bed. Special focus is given to the way services are specified and to the orchestration tools used to manage system logic. The obtained results show clearly that using integrations schemes based on SOA reduces system integration time and are more adapted to industrial robotic cell system integrators.

Journal ArticleDOI
27 Feb 2009
TL;DR: System on Wafer (SoW) as discussed by the authors is a chip-to-wafer approach for heterogeneous integration, where each component is achieved by using wafer-level technologies, and the final system is performed by single component mounting on a silicon substrate.
Abstract: System integration is clearly a driving force for innovation in packaging. The need for miniaturization has led to new architectures that combine disparate technologies and materials. Today several different approaches have been developed. These include technologies like system in package. In this way, a new concept for heterogeneous integration is currently being developed at CEA-LETI and is called system on wafer (SoW). This concept is based on a chip to wafer approach. Every component is achieved by using wafer-level technologies, and the final system is performed by single component mounting on a silicon substrate. The main strength of this approach is to use silicon as a substrate for components and for basic support. To perform the SoW, a generic technological toolbox is needed. This includes every standard packaging technology such as flip chip, signal rerouting, and passive component integration as well as new advanced technologies such as microelectromechanical systems packaging, advanced interconnections, energy source integration, integrated cooling, or silicon through vias. In this paper, the SoW concept will be presented and the generic toolbox for SoW achievement will be described.