Plenary Speakers

Autonomous Machine Tools – Vision or Soon Reality?

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Berend Denkena
Institute of Production Engineering and Machine Tools, Leibniz University Hannover (Germany)
E-mail : denkena@ifw.uni-hannover.de

The presentation is based on the automation stages of autonomous driving and their adaptation to machine tools.Examples are used to discuss key technologies that will be required for autonomous production in the future.One focus is on innovative sensor technologies and the use of sensor data to enable autonomous machine tools. Topics such as process monitoring, extended process control using additional actuators and semi-autonomous process planning approaches using intelligent planning algorithms are covered. Furthermore, it is discussed how learning of machine tools can be achieved. This is followed by an example of a semi-autonomous production cell for medical implants developed in collaboration with industrial partners. Finally, an attempt is made to answer the question of if or when we will be able to manufacture autonomously.

Smart Manufacturing with a Decentralized and Distributed Regime

Prof. Xun Xu
Chair of Smart Manufacturing, University of Auckland (New Zealand)
E-mail : x.xu@auckland.ac.nz

In an effort to take on the unprecedented challenges of volatile global demand, together with the mandate of sustainable digital transformation, manufacturing systems need to be robust, agile, and smart with sometimes extreme ASAP-delivery capabilities. Contemporary digital capabilities and advances over widespread networks promise new ways of meeting the challenges. These capabilities are for example high-power computation, cloud and edge computing services, and lower-cost sensing, many of which have been captured in Industry 4.0 in the form of the Industrial Internet, Cyber-physical Production Systems, and Digital Twins. This talk intends to address manufacturing control and manufacturing intelligence in a distributed and decentralised manner for smart manufacturing where distributed and autonomously acting components, machines, service robots, and other systems work collectively to give adaptability, flexibility, and even self-healing and self-learning characteristics. The concept and related enabling technologies also contribute to a factory-factory co-manufacturing paradigm, i.e. cloud manufacturing. Distributed control of manufacturing equipment at the field level is a challenge; so is distributed decision-making and intelligence for a manufacturing system. When machine control with real-time requirements is distributed among the network-connected nodes, what machining error does the control architecture induce, and how to quantify the error? When a disturbance occurs in a manufacturing system where multiple facilities are present, how does the system adapt to the disturbance for continued production? These are some of the questions that this talk intends to shed light on some possible solutions.

Biography
Xun W. Xu is a professor of Smart Manufacturing at the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, The University of Auckland. He has been working in the field of intelligent manufacturing solutions for over 30 years. Dr. Xu is an internationally recognized expert in smart manufacturing systems, STEP-NC, cloud-based manufacturing and IoT-enabled manufacturing. He serves as an Associate Editor and member of the Editorial Board of a number of international journals and has published over 430 research papers. Dr. Xu is the Director of the Laboratory for Industry 4.0 Smart Manufacturing Systems (LISMS), the only Laboratory for Industry 4.0 in New Zealand. His current research focus is on Industry 4.0 technologies, e.g. smart factories, digital twins, and cloud manufacturing. Dr. Xu is a Fellow of the American Society for Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and Engineering New Zealand (EngNZ). He was recognized by the Web of Science as a Clarivate™ Highly Cited Researcher in 2020. In the same year, he was named among of the “20 Most Influential Professors in Smart Manufacturing” by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME). Dr. Xu is now on the Board of Directors of the North American Manufacturing Research Institution of SME (NAMRI/SME) and NAMRI Scientific Committee Chair-Elect.