A Service Infrastructure for Industrie 4.0 Testbeds based on Asset Administration Shells

Abstract

Industrial testbeds are spawning all across Europe, focusing on diverse topics. In our Human-Robot-Collaboration lab, we are researching how the lives of people in production can be made simpler through the use of collaborative robots, but still safe against the backdrop of the necessary changeability. Standardized digital twins based on Asset Administration Shells embedded in a service-oriented architecture are an ideal underlying information technology for this endeavor. In this paper, we describe such an infrastructure and outline its use based on two different use cases. We are convinced that this is not only relevant for testbed operators who want to achieve technical and semantic interoperability of their facilities, but can also serve as a blueprint for the implementation of Industrie 4.0 in small and medium-sized enterprises.