A New System Design for Making Non-Intelligent Handheld Devices Used in Production Compatible with Industry 4.0

Abstract

Nowadays, the concept of industry 4.0 frequently occur in the literature. The digitalization of manufacturing grows rapidly. The basic structure of the approach is to transform the hardware and equipment in the manufacturing into intelligent elements that communicate each other. In this study, based on the idea of ​​intelligent equipment; we propose to transform traditional power screwdrivers into smart devices that communicate with various IoT applications or cloud applications by including electronic cards and software components. Our approach aims to minimize the percentage of human error in the manufacturing process. There are four main elements in our system. These are Web/Cloud Server, NGP Operator panels, RF I/O card and power screwdriver RF card. All these elements communicate with each other. The overall working principle of the system is briefly as follows. There is a database on the Web/Cloud Server. In this database, there are job parameters related to the assembly ID(CIS) number which defined for each assembly job. Various operations to be performed according to the assembly ID(CIS) number are defined in detail in the database, for example, for power screwdrivers, the number of tightening information is defined on a rule-based basis. With the Web API developed in C# language, the web/cloud server communicates with the linux computer that executes the NGP operator panel. When an assembly job starts, if the assembly ID(CIS) number matches the stock definition, then the relevant transaction data is retrieved from the web server and displayed on the NGP operator panel. The front-end software on the NGP operator panel was developed using Microsoft.NET and compiled using Mono Framework to support Linux OS. As soon as an assembly job starts, the number of screws to be tightened determined according to the assembly ID(CIS) related rules. After that, the gun MAC (TMAC) address information is transmitted from the NGP operator panel to the RF I/O Card via RS232 serial port communication. The ZigBee protocol carries the information about how many screws will be tightened from the RF I/O Card to the Gun RF card mounted on power screwdriver. A special RF based protocol developed for that purpose. By means of our proposed protocol, "OK" or "Not OK" information is sent to the RF I/O card of the NGP operator panel every time the operator performs the tightening operation. With the bidirectional RS232 serial port communication, an information message is returned for each completed operation to the NGP operator panel via the RF I/O card. When all the operations related to the assembly ID(CIS) number are completed, the relevant data is transmitted over the Web Server API and recorded in the database, and the assembly life cycle is completed. This study demonstrates how traditional power screwdrivers may be transformed into an IoT-enabled smart manufacturing device without extensive modification. Thanks to the proposed solution, the digital transformation of traditional devices will be affordable and applicable to many different manufacturing tools.