IIHub: An Industrial Internet-of-Things Hub Toward Smart Manufacturing Based on Cyber-Physical System

TLDR

Smart manufacturing is a national priority, yet existing solutions struggle to achieve smart interconnection across heterogeneous equipment, rapid configuration, and online service generation, limiting potential for smart analysis and precise management. The authors propose the IIHub, an industrial IoT hub comprising a customized access module, access hub, and local service pool, to address these interconnection challenges. IIHub uses configurable CA‑Modules to connect diverse manufacturing resources, generates manufacturing services online via encapsulation templates, and enables rapid configuration and implementation for smart interconnection. A prototype demonstrates IIHub’s functionality and its ability to realize smart interconnection.

Abstract

Smart manufacturing is increasingly becoming the common goal of various national strategies. Smart interconnection is one of the most important issues for implementing smart manufacturing. However, current solutions are not tended to realize smart interconnection in dealing with heterogeneous equipment, quick configuration and implementation, and online service generation. To solve the issues, industrial Internet-of-Things hub (IIHub) is proposed, which consists of customized access module (CA-Module), access hub (A-Hub), and local service pool (LSP). A set of flexible CA-Modules can be configured or programed to connect heterogeneous physical manufacturing resources. Besides, the IIHub supports manufacturing services online generation based on the service encapsulation templates and also supports quick configuration and implementation for smart interconnection. Furthermore, related smart analysis and precise management have the potential to be achieved. Finally, a prototype is given to illustrate the functions of the proposed IIHub, and to show how IIHub realizes smart interconnection.