On The Effects of The Variations In Network Characteristics In Cyber Physical Systems

The popular robotic simulator, Gazebo, lacks the feature of simulating the effects of control latency that would make it a fully-fledged cyber-physical system (CPS) simulator. The CPS that we address to measure is a robotic arm (UR5) controlled remotely with velocity commands. The main goal is to measure Quality of Control (QoC) related KPIs during various network conditions in a simulated environment. We propose a Gazebo plugin to make the above measurement feasible by making Gazebo capable to delay internal control and status messages and also to interface with external network simulators to derive even more advanced network effects. Our preliminary evaluation shows that there is certainly an effect on the behavior of the robotic arm with the introduced network latency in line with our expectations, but a more detailed further study is needed.

FATHER: FActory on THE Road

In most factories today the robotic cells are deployed on well enforced bases to avoid any external impact on the accuracy of production. In contrast to that, we evaluate a futuristic concept where the whole robotic cell could work in a moving platform. Imagine a trailer of a truck moving along the motorway while exposed to heavy physical impacts due to maneuvering. The key question here is how the robotic cell behaves and how the productivity is affected. We propose a system architecture (FATHER) and show some solutions including network related information and artificial intelligence to make the proposed futuristic concept feasible to implement.