TY - CHAP A1 - Eichenbaum, Julian A1 - Nikolovski, Gjorgji A1 - Mülhens, Leon A1 - Reke, Michael A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Scholl, Ingrid T1 - Towards a lifelong mapping approach using Lanelet 2 for autonomous open-pit mine operations T2 - 2023 IEEE 19th International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE) N2 - Autonomous agents require rich environment models for fulfilling their missions. High-definition maps are a well-established map format which allows for representing semantic information besides the usual geometric information of the environment. These are, for instance, road shapes, road markings, traffic signs or barriers. The geometric resolution of HD maps can be as precise as of centimetre level. In this paper, we report on our approach of using HD maps as a map representation for autonomous load-haul-dump vehicles in open-pit mining operations. As the mine undergoes constant change, we also need to constantly update the map. Therefore, we follow a lifelong mapping approach for updating the HD maps based on camera-based object detection and GPS data. We show our mapping algorithm based on the Lanelet 2 map format and show our integration with the navigation stack of the Robot Operating System. We present experimental results on our lifelong mapping approach from a real open-pit mine. Y1 - 2023 SN - 979-8-3503-2069-5 (Online) SN - 979-8-3503-2070-1 (Print) U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/CASE56687.2023.10260526 N1 - 19th International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE), 26-30 August 2023, Auckland, New Zealand. PB - IEEE ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Viehmann, Tarik A1 - Limpert, Nicolas A1 - Hofmann, Till A1 - Henning, Mike A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Lakemeyer, Gerhard ED - Eguchi, Amy ED - Lau, Nuno ED - Paetzel-Prüsmann, Maike ED - Wanichanon, Thanapat T1 - Winning the RoboCup logistics league with visual servoing and centralized goal reasoning T2 - RoboCup 2022 N2 - The RoboCup Logistics League (RCLL) is a robotics competition in a production logistics scenario in the context of a Smart Factory. In the competition, a team of three robots needs to assemble products to fulfill various orders that are requested online during the game. This year, the Carologistics team was able to win the competition with a new approach to multi-agent coordination as well as significant changes to the robot’s perception unit and a pragmatic network setup using the cellular network instead of WiFi. In this paper, we describe the major components of our approach with a focus on the changes compared to the last physical competition in 2019. Y1 - 2023 SN - 978-3-031-28468-7 (Print) SN - 978-3-031-28469-4 (Online) U6 - http://dx.doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28469-4_25 N1 - Robot World Cup, RoboCup 2022. 17. July 2023. Bangkok, Thailand. Part of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science book series (LNAI,volume 13561) SP - 300 EP - 312 PB - Springer CY - Cham ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Coll-Perales, Baldomero A1 - Schulte-Tigges, Joschua A1 - Rondinone, Michele A1 - Gozalvez, Javier A1 - Reke, Michael A1 - Matheis, Dominik A1 - Walter, Thomas T1 - Prototyping and evaluation of infrastructure-assisted transition of control for cooperative automated vehicles JF - IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems N2 - Automated driving is now possible in diverse road and traffic conditions. However, there are still situations that automated vehicles cannot handle safely and efficiently. In this case, a Transition of Control (ToC) is necessary so that the driver takes control of the driving. Executing a ToC requires the driver to get full situation awareness of the driving environment. If the driver fails to get back the control in a limited time, a Minimum Risk Maneuver (MRM) is executed to bring the vehicle into a safe state (e.g., decelerating to full stop). The execution of ToCs requires some time and can cause traffic disruption and safety risks that increase if several vehicles execute ToCs/MRMs at similar times and in the same area. This study proposes to use novel C-ITS traffic management measures where the infrastructure exploits V2X communications to assist Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs) in the execution of ToCs. The infrastructure can suggest a spatial distribution of ToCs, and inform vehicles of the locations where they could execute a safe stop in case of MRM. This paper reports the first field operational tests that validate the feasibility and quantify the benefits of the proposed infrastructure-assisted ToC and MRM management. The paper also presents the CAV and roadside infrastructure prototypes implemented and used in the trials. The conducted field trials demonstrate that infrastructure-assisted traffic management solutions can reduce safety risks and traffic disruptions. KW - Automated driving KW - automated vehicles KW - connected automated vehicles KW - CAV KW - experimental evaluation Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TITS.2021.3061085 SN - 1524-9050 (Print) SN - 1558-0016 (Online) VL - 23 IS - 7 SP - 6720 EP - 6736 PB - IEEE ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Schulte-Tigges, Joschua A1 - Matheis, Dominik A1 - Reke, Michael A1 - Walter, Thomas A1 - Kaszner, Daniel ED - Krömker, Heidi T1 - Demonstrating a V2X enabled system for transition of control and minimum risk manoeuvre when leaving the operational design domain T2 - HCII 2023: HCI in Mobility, Transport, and Automotive Systems N2 - Modern implementations of driver assistance systems are evolving from a pure driver assistance to a independently acting automation system. Still these systems are not covering the full vehicle usage range, also called operational design domain, which require the human driver as fall-back mechanism. Transition of control and potential minimum risk manoeuvres are currently research topics and will bridge the gap until full autonomous vehicles are available. The authors showed in a demonstration that the transition of control mechanisms can be further improved by usage of communication technology. Receiving the incident type and position information by usage of standardised vehicle to everything (V2X) messages can improve the driver safety and comfort level. The connected and automated vehicle’s software framework can take this information to plan areas where the driver should take back control by initiating a transition of control which can be followed by a minimum risk manoeuvre in case of an unresponsive driver. This transition of control has been implemented in a test vehicle and was presented to the public during the IEEE IV2022 (IEEE Intelligent Vehicle Symposium) in Aachen, Germany. KW - V2X KW - Transiton of Control KW - Minimum Risk Manoeuvre KW - Operational Design Domain KW - Connected Automated Vehicle Y1 - 2023 SN - 978-3-031-35677-3 (Print) SN - 978-3-031-35678-0 (Online) U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35678-0_12 N1 - 5th International Conference, MobiTAS 2023, Held as Part of the 25th HCI International Conference, HCII 2023, Copenhagen, Denmark, July 23–28, 2023. SP - 200 EP - 210 PB - Springer CY - Cham ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Chavez Bermudez, Victor Francisco A1 - Cruz Castanon, Victor Fernando A1 - Ruchay, Marco A1 - Wollert, Jörg ED - Leipzig, Hochschule für Technik, Wirtschaft und Kultur T1 - Rapid prototyping framework for automation applications based on IO-Link T2 - Tagungsband AALE 2022 N2 - The development of protype applications with sensors and actuators in the automation industry requires tools that are independent of manufacturer, and are flexible enough to be modified or extended for any specific requirements. Currently, developing prototypes with industrial sensors and actuators is not straightforward. First of all, the exchange of information depends on the industrial protocol that these devices have. Second, a specific configuration and installation is done based on the hardware that is used, such as automation controllers or industrial gateways. This means that the development for a specific industrial protocol, highly depends on the hardware and the software that vendors provide. In this work we propose a rapid-prototyping framework based on Arduino to solve this problem. For this project we have focused to work with the IO-Link protocol. The framework consists of an Arduino shield that acts as the physical layer, and a software that implements the IO-Link Master protocol. The main advantage of such framework is that an application with industrial devices can be rapid-prototyped with ease as its vendor independent, open-source and can be ported easily to other Arduino compatible boards. In comparison, a typical approach requires proprietary hardware, is not easy to port to another system and is closed-source. KW - Rapid-prototyping KW - Arduino KW - IO-Link KW - Industrial Communication Y1 - 2022 SN - 978-3-910103-00-9 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.33968/2022.28 N1 - 18. AALE-Konferenz, Pforzheim, 09.03.-11.03.2022. CY - Leipzig ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Cheng, Chi-Tsun A1 - Wollert, Jörg A1 - Chen, Xi A1 - Fapojuwo, Abraham O. T1 - Guest Editorial : Circuits and Systems for Industry X.0 Applications JF - IEEE Journal on Emerging and Selected Topics in Circuits and Systems Y1 - 2023 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/JETCAS.2023.3278843 SN - 2156-3357 (Print) SN - 2156-3365 (Online) VL - 13 SP - 457 EP - 460 PB - IEEE CY - New York ET - 2 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Nikolovski, Gjorgji A1 - Limpert, Nicolas A1 - Nessau, Hendrik A1 - Reke, Michael A1 - Ferrein, Alexander T1 - Model-predictive control with parallelised optimisation for the navigation of autonomous mining vehicles T2 - 2023 IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IV) N2 - The work in modern open-pit and underground mines requires the transportation of large amounts of resources between fixed points. The navigation to these fixed points is a repetitive task that can be automated. The challenge in automating the navigation of vehicles commonly used in mines is the systemic properties of such vehicles. Many mining vehicles, such as the one we have used in the research for this paper, use steering systems with an articulated joint bending the vehicle’s drive axis to change its course and a hydraulic drive system to actuate axial drive components or the movements of tippers if available. To address the difficulties of controlling such a vehicle, we present a model-predictive approach for controlling the vehicle. While the control optimisation based on a parallel error minimisation of the predicted state has already been established in the past, we provide insight into the design and implementation of an MPC for an articulated mining vehicle and show the results of real-world experiments in an open-pit mine environment. KW - Mpc KW - Control KW - Path-following KW - Navigation KW - Automation Y1 - 2023 SN - 979-8-3503-4691-6 (Online) SN - 979-8-3503-4692-3 (Print) U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/IV55152.2023.10186806 N1 - IEEE Symposium on Intelligent Vehicle, 4.-7. June 2023, Anchorage, AK, USA. PB - IEEE ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Dey, Thomas A1 - Elsen, Ingo A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Frauenrath, Tobias A1 - Reke, Michael A1 - Schiffer, Stefan ED - Makedon, Fillia T1 - CO2 Meter: a do-it-yourself carbon dioxide measuring device for the classroom T2 - PETRA 2021: The 14th PErvasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments Conference N2 - In this paper we report on CO2 Meter, a do-it-yourself carbon dioxide measuring device for the classroom. Part of the current measures for dealing with the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is proper ventilation in indoor settings. This is especially important in schools with students coming back to the classroom even with high incidents rates. Static ventilation patterns do not consider the individual situation for a particular class. Influencing factors like the type of activity, the physical structure or the room occupancy are not incorporated. Also, existing devices are rather expensive and often provide only limited information and only locally without any networking. This leaves the potential of analysing the situation across different settings untapped. Carbon dioxide level can be used as an indicator of air quality, in general, and of aerosol load in particular. Since, according to the latest findings, SARS-CoV-2 can be transmitted primarily in the form of aerosols, carbon dioxide may be used as a proxy for the risk of a virus infection. Hence, schools could improve the indoor air quality and potentially reduce the infection risk if they actually had measuring devices available in the classroom. Our device supports schools in ventilation and it allows for collecting data over the Internet to enable a detailed data analysis and model generation. First deployments in schools at different levels were received very positively. A pilot installation with a larger data collection and analysis is underway. KW - embedded hardware KW - sensor networks KW - information systems KW - education KW - do-it-yourself Y1 - 2021 SN - 9781450387927 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3453892.3462697 N1 - PETRA '21: The 14th PErvasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments Conference Corfu Greece 29 June 2021- 2 July 2021 SP - 292 EP - 299 PB - Association for Computing Machinery CY - New York ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ulmer, Jessica A1 - Braun, Carsten A1 - Cheng, Chi-Tsun A1 - Dowey, Steve A1 - Wollert, Jörg T1 - A human factors-aware assistance system in manufacturing based on gamification and hardware modularisation JF - International Journal of Production Research N2 - Assistance systems have been widely adopted in the manufacturing sector to facilitate various processes and tasks in production environments. However, existing systems are mostly equipped with rigid functional logic and do not provide individual user experiences or adapt to their capabilities. This work integrates human factors in assistance systems by adjusting the hardware and instruction presented to the workers’ cognitive and physical demands. A modular system architecture is designed accordingly, which allows a flexible component exchange according to the user and the work task. Gamification, the use of game elements in non-gaming contexts, has been further adopted in this work to provide level-based instructions and personalised feedback. The developed framework is validated by applying it to a manual workstation for industrial assembly routines. KW - Human factors KW - assistance system KW - gamification KW - adaptive systems KW - manufacturing Y1 - 2023 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2023.2166140 SN - 0020-7543 (Print) SN - 1366-588X (Online) PB - Taylor & Francis ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schulte-Tigges, Joschua A1 - Förster, Marco A1 - Nikolovski, Gjorgji A1 - Reke, Michael A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Kaszner, Daniel A1 - Matheis, Dominik A1 - Walter, Thomas T1 - Benchmarking of various LiDAR sensors for use in self-driving vehicles in real-world environments JF - Sensors N2 - Abstract In this paper, we report on our benchmark results of the LiDAR sensors Livox Horizon, Robosense M1, Blickfeld Cube, Blickfeld Cube Range, Velodyne Velarray H800, and Innoviz Pro. The idea was to test the sensors in different typical scenarios that were defined with real-world use cases in mind, in order to find a sensor that meet the requirements of self-driving vehicles. For this, we defined static and dynamic benchmark scenarios. In the static scenarios, both LiDAR and the detection target do not move during the measurement. In dynamic scenarios, the LiDAR sensor was mounted on the vehicle which was driving toward the detection target. We tested all mentioned LiDAR sensors in both scenarios, show the results regarding the detection accuracy of the targets, and discuss their usefulness for deployment in self-driving cars. KW - Lidar KW - Benchmark KW - Self-driving Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s22197146 SN - 1424-8220 N1 - This article belongs to the Special Issue "Sensor Fusion for Vehicles Navigation and Robotic Systems" VL - 22 IS - 19 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Evans, Benjamin A1 - Braun, Sebastian A1 - Ulmer, Jessica A1 - Wollert, Jörg T1 - AAS implementations - current problems and solutions T2 - 20th International Conference on Mechatronics - Mechatronika (ME) N2 - The fourth industrial revolution presents a multitude of challenges for industries, one of which being the increased flexibility required of manufacturing lines as a result of increased consumer demand for individualised products. One solution to tackle this challenge is the digital twin, more specifically the standardised model of a digital twin also known as the asset administration shell. The standardisation of an industry wide communications tool is a critical step in enabling inter-company operations. This paper discusses the current state of asset administration shells, the frameworks used to host them and their problems that need to be addressed. To tackle these issues, we propose an event-based server capable of drastically reducing response times between assets and asset administration shells and a multi-agent system used for the orchestration and deployment of the shells in the field. KW - Industry 4.0 KW - Multi-agent Systems KW - Digital Twin KW - Asset Administration Shell Y1 - 2022 SN - 978-1-6654-1040-3 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ME54704.2022.9982933 PB - IEEE ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Ulmer, Jessica A1 - Braun, Sebastian A1 - Cheng, Chi-Tsun A1 - Dowey, Steve A1 - Wollert, Jörg T1 - Usage of digital twins for gamification applications in manufacturing T2 - Procedia CIRP N2 - Gamification applications are on the rise in the manufacturing sector to customize working scenarios, offer user-specific feedback, and provide personalized learning offerings. Commonly, different sensors are integrated into work environments to track workers’ actions. Game elements are selected according to the work task and users’ preferences. However, implementing gamified workplaces remains challenging as different data sources must be established, evaluated, and connected. Developers often require information from several areas of the companies to offer meaningful gamification strategies for their employees. Moreover, work environments and the associated support systems are usually not flexible enough to adapt to personal needs. Digital twins are one primary possibility to create a uniform data approach that can provide semantic information to gamification applications. Frequently, several digital twins have to interact with each other to provide information about the workplace, the manufacturing process, and the knowledge of the employees. This research aims to create an overview of existing digital twin approaches for digital support systems and presents a concept to use digital twins for gamified support and training systems. The concept is based upon the Reference Architecture Industry 4.0 (RAMI 4.0) and includes information about the whole life cycle of the assets. It is applied to an existing gamified training system and evaluated in the Industry 4.0 model factory by an example of a handle mounting. KW - Gamification KW - Digital Twin KW - Support System Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2022.05.044 SN - 2212-8271 N1 - 55th CIRP Conference on Manufacturing Systems VL - 107 SP - 675 EP - 680 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Chavez Bermudez, Victor Francisco A1 - Wollert, Jörg T1 - 10BASE-T1L industry 4.0 smart switch for field devices based on IO-Link T2 - 2022 IEEE 18th International Conference on Factory Communication Systems (WFCS) N2 - The recent amendment to the Ethernet physical layer known as the IEEE 802.3cg specification, allows to connect devices up to a distance of one kilometer and delivers a maximum of 60 watts of power over a twisted pair of wires. This new standard, also known as 10BASE-TIL, promises to overcome the limits of current physical layers used for field devices and bring them a step closer to Ethernet-based applications. The main advantage of 10BASE- TIL is that it can deliver power and data over the same line over a long distance, where traditional solutions (e.g., CAN, IO-Link, HART) fall short and cannot match its 10 Mbps bandwidth. Due to its recentness, IOBASE- TIL is still not integrated into field devices and it has been less than two years since silicon manufacturers released the first Ethernet-PHY chips. In this paper, we present a design proposal on how field devices could be integrated into a IOBASE-TIL smart switch that allows plug-and-play connectivity for sensors and actuators and is compliant with the Industry 4.0 vision. Instead of presenting a new field-level protocol for this work, we have decided to adopt the IO-Link specification which already includes a plug-and-play approach with features such as diagnosis and device configuration. The main objective of this work is to explore how field devices could be integrated into 10BASE-TIL Ethernet, its adaption with a well-known protocol, and its integration with Industry 4.0 technologies. KW - 10BASE-T1L KW - Ethernet KW - Field device KW - Sensors KW - IO-Link Y1 - 2022 SN - 978-1-6654-1086-1 SN - 978-1-6654-1087-8 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/WFCS53837.2022.9779176 N1 - 2022 IEEE 18th International Conference on Factory Communication Systems (WFCS), 27-29 April 2022, Pavia, Italy- PB - IEEE ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ulmer, Jessica A1 - Braun, Sebastian A1 - Cheng, Chi-Tsun A1 - Dowey, Steve A1 - Wollert, Jörg T1 - Gamification of virtual reality assembly training: Effects of a combined point and level system on motivation and training results JF - International Journal of Human-Computer Studies N2 - Virtual Reality (VR) offers novel possibilities for remote training regardless of the availability of the actual equipment, the presence of specialists, and the training locations. Research shows that training environments that adapt to users' preferences and performance can promote more effective learning. However, the observed results can hardly be traced back to specific adaptive measures but the whole new training approach. This study analyzes the effects of a combined point and leveling VR-based gamification system on assembly training targeting specific training outcomes and users' motivations. The Gamified-VR-Group with 26 subjects received the gamified training, and the Non-Gamified-VR-Group with 27 subjects received the alternative without gamified elements. Both groups conducted their VR training at least three times before assembling the actual structure. The study found that a level system that gradually increases the difficulty and error probability in VR can significantly lower real-world error rates, self-corrections, and support usages. According to our study, a high error occurrence at the highest training level reduced the Gamified-VR-Group's feeling of competence compared to the Non-Gamified-VR-Group, but at the same time also led to lower error probabilities in real-life. It is concluded that a level system with a variable task difficulty should be combined with carefully balanced positive and negative feedback messages. This way, better learning results, and an improved self-evaluation can be achieved while not causing significant impacts on the participants' feeling of competence. KW - Gamification KW - Virtual reality KW - Assembly KW - User study KW - Level system Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2022.102854 SN - 1071-5819 VL - 165 IS - Art. No. 102854 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Engemann, Heiko A1 - Cönen, Patrick A1 - Dawar, Harshal A1 - Du, Shengzhi A1 - Kallweit, Stephan T1 - A robot-assisted large-scale inspection of wind turbine blades in manufacturing using an autonomous mobile manipulator JF - Applied Sciences N2 - Wind energy represents the dominant share of renewable energies. The rotor blades of a wind turbine are typically made from composite material, which withstands high forces during rotation. The huge dimensions of the rotor blades complicate the inspection processes in manufacturing. The automation of inspection processes has a great potential to increase the overall productivity and to create a consistent reliable database for each individual rotor blade. The focus of this paper is set on the process of rotor blade inspection automation by utilizing an autonomous mobile manipulator. The main innovations include a novel path planning strategy for zone-based navigation, which enables an intuitive right-hand or left-hand driving behavior in a shared human–robot workspace. In addition, we introduce a new method for surface orthogonal motion planning in connection with large-scale structures. An overall execution strategy controls the navigation and manipulation processes of the long-running inspection task. The implemented concepts are evaluated in simulation and applied in a real-use case including the tip of a rotor blade form. KW - mobile manipulation KW - large-scale inspection KW - wind turbine production KW - autonomous navigation KW - surface-orthogonal path planning Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/app11199271 SN - 2076-3417 N1 - Belongs to the Special Issue "Advances in Industrial Robotics and Intelligent Systems" VL - 11 IS - 19 SP - 1 EP - 22 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Ulmer, Jessica A1 - Braun, Sebastian A1 - Cheng, Chi-Tsun A1 - Dowey, Steve A1 - Wollert, Jörg T1 - Adapting Augmented Reality Systems to the users’ needs using Gamification and error solving methods T2 - Procedia CIRP N2 - Animations of virtual items in AR support systems are typically predefined and lack interactions with dynamic physical environments. AR applications rarely consider users’ preferences and do not provide customized spontaneous support under unknown situations. This research focuses on developing adaptive, error-tolerant AR systems based on directed acyclic graphs and error resolving strategies. Using this approach, users will have more freedom of choice during AR supported work, which leads to more efficient workflows. Error correction methods based on CAD models and predefined process data create individual support possibilities. The framework is implemented in the Industry 4.0 model factory at FH Aachen. KW - Augmented Reality KW - Adaptive Systems KW - Gamification KW - Error Recovery Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2021.11.024 SN - 2212-8271 N1 - Part of special issue: 54th CIRP CMS 2021 - Towards Digitalized Manufacturing 4.0 VL - 104 SP - 140 EP - 145 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Chajan, Eduard A1 - Schulte-Tigges, Joschua A1 - Reke, Michael A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Matheis, Dominik A1 - Walter, Thomas T1 - GPU based model-predictive path control for self-driving vehicles T2 - IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IV) N2 - One central challenge for self-driving cars is a proper path-planning. Once a trajectory has been found, the next challenge is to accurately and safely follow the precalculated path. The model-predictive controller (MPC) is a common approach for the lateral control of autonomous vehicles. The MPC uses a vehicle dynamics model to predict the future states of the vehicle for a given prediction horizon. However, in order to achieve real-time path control, the computational load is usually large, which leads to short prediction horizons. To deal with the computational load, the control algorithm can be parallelized on the graphics processing unit (GPU). In contrast to the widely used stochastic methods, in this paper we propose a deterministic approach based on grid search. Our approach focuses on systematically discovering the search area with different levels of granularity. To achieve this, we split the optimization algorithm into multiple iterations. The best sequence of each iteration is then used as an initial solution to the next iteration. The granularity increases, resulting in smooth and predictable steering angle sequences. We present a novel GPU-based algorithm and show its accuracy and realtime abilities with a number of real-world experiments. KW - Heuristic algorithms KW - Computational modeling KW - model-predictive control KW - GPU KW - autonomous driving Y1 - 2021 SN - 978-1-7281-5394-0 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/IV48863.2021.9575619 N1 - 2021 IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IV) July 11-17, 2021. Nagoya, Japan SP - 1243 EP - 1248 PB - IEEE ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Braun, Sebastian A1 - Cheng, Chi-Tsun A1 - Dowey, Steve A1 - Wollert, Jörg T1 - Performance evaluation of skill-based order-assignment in production environments with multi-agent systems JF - IEEE Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics in Industrial Electronics N2 - The fourth industrial revolution introduces disruptive technologies to production environments. One of these technologies are multi-agent systems (MASs), where agents virtualize machines. However, the agent's actual performances in production environments can hardly be estimated as most research has been focusing on isolated projects and specific scenarios. We address this gap by implementing a highly connected and configurable reference model with quantifiable key performance indicators (KPIs) for production scheduling and routing in single-piece workflows. Furthermore, we propose an algorithm to optimize the search of extrema in highly connected distributed systems. The benefits, limits, and drawbacks of MASs and their performances are evaluated extensively by event-based simulations against the introduced model, which acts as a benchmark. Even though the performance of the proposed MAS is, on average, slightly lower than the reference system, the increased flexibility allows it to find new solutions and deliver improved factory-planning outcomes. Our MAS shows an emerging behavior by using flexible production techniques to correct errors and compensate for bottlenecks. This increased flexibility offers substantial improvement potential. The general model in this paper allows the transfer of the results to estimate real systems or other models. KW - cyber-physical production systems KW - event-based simulation KW - multi-agent systems KW - digital factory KW - industrial agents Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/JESTIE.2021.3108524 SN - 2687-9735 IS - Early Access PB - IEEE CY - New York ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Hüning, Felix A1 - Stüttgen, Marcel T1 - Work in Progress: Interdisciplinary projects in times of COVID-19 crisis – challenges, risks and chances T2 - 2021 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON) Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/EDUCON46332.2021.9454006 SP - 1175 EP - 1179 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Ferrein, Alexander A1 - Meeßen, Marcus A1 - Limpert, Nicolas A1 - Schiffer, Stefan ED - Lepuschitz, Wilfried T1 - Compiling ROS Schooling Curricula via Contentual Taxonomies T2 - Robotics in Education Y1 - 2021 SN - 978-3-030-67411-3 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67411-3_5 N1 - RiE: International Conference on Robotics in Education (RiE); Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing book series (AISC, volume 1316) SP - 49 EP - 60 PB - Springer CY - Cham ER -