NOVA Asset Administration Shell [NI-SERV-2020-57]

Implements the concept of the Digital Twin of a physical object turning it into an Industrie 4.0 component that facilitates interoperability in industrial applications

The NOVA Asset Administration Shell (NOVAAS) is an open source reference implementation and execution environment – developed by NOVA School of Science and Technology – for the Asset Administration Shell (AAS) concept proposed by the Reference Architectural Model for Industrie 4.0 (RAMI4.0). The AAS is the core concept of the Industrie 4.0 since it stands as the basis for the development of digital production systems based on industry 4.0 components. Practically, it implements the concept of the Digital Twin of a physical object turning it into an Industrie 4.0 component that facilitates interoperability in industrial applications.

Service/Expertise Overview

The solution is designed and developed using best-of-breed practices from IT engineering. The core is implemented in javascript using node-red as development environment and node.js as execution environment. It provides different message exchange patterns (MEPs) to enable external application to communicate with it, namely: REST-based communication for request/reply protocol and MQTT for event streaming. Data is formatted in JSON and the internal data model is aligned with Industrie 4.0 directives on AAS.

Opportunity

• Available for academic users free of charge
• Available for commercial users free of charge
• Seeking co-development partners

Applications

• Digitalization of production systems according to Industrie 4.0 directives.
• Facilitate the data extraction process from typically heterogenous and distributed environment.
• Establishes the cornerstone for interoperability between applications that manage the production system.
• Introduction of advanced IT methodologies, implementations, and infrastructure within the manufacturing environment.

Further details

NOVAAS is currently under active development together with industrial partners such as Phoenix Contact, FEST, ABII, etc. to be highly aligned with the Industry 4.0 guidelines and specifications.

Source Code available here:

https://gitlab.com/novaas/catalog/nova-school-of-science-and-technology

Publication

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8927081

Research unit

Department of Electrotechnical Engineering and Computers.