In industrial automation settings, Arrowhead local clouds provide a secure and responsive automation network where cyber physical systems can be deployed. A recent video produced by Eclipse Arrowhead partner Evopro explains just how easily you can integrate new assets into your current industrial processes using Docker templates together with the Eclipse Arrowhead approach.

A number of Arrowhead Tools partners will be participating in the Industry Forum at the IEEE ICPS conference in Warwick on 24 May highlighting important developments in cyber physical systems, automation solutions and the deployment of the Internet of Things in industrial settings.

For anyone who lives as far north as Luleå, clearing snow is a serious business. Keeping roads, pavements and cycleways free of snow occupies a significant post in municipal budgets. In areas where ice roads provide an important wintertime transport link, there are also important safety considerations to snow removal operations. Shortly before Christmas, a group of students at Luleå University of Technology (LTU) presented what could be the first step toward a fleet of autonomous robots that are able to clear snow safely and efficiently. All that is required is for a user to trace the area they would like cleared on a map.

Join us on March 30 at 14:00 CET to learn more about how you can implement next generation capabilities with the help of like-minded organizations that have come together to realize digital transformations with open systems that avoid vendor lock in.

Infineon is a world leader in semiconductor solutions. The company’s Dresden site is one of the group's largest and most modern development and manufacturing facilities with over 3,000 employees. The site also provides the context for an Eclipse Arrowhead industrial use case that has shown enormous potential.

When you ship hundreds of millions of household appliances to more than 100 countries across several continents, even small gains in efficiency can have a dramatic impact on overall production. One of the most critical tests before household electrical products are sent to market is engineering validation tests of their power supply units. The power supplies in each unit, whether it be a television or refrigerator, need to be tested and depending on their final destination will need to be robust enough to handle fluctuations of the regional power grid. To ensure this is the case, all components that face electrical stress during power supply operation (including semiconductors, capacitors, and wire-wound components) are tested before products are shipped. These tests are currently most often carried out by hand with engineers measuring the specific properties of a product’s  switching transistors at a given voltage and load, a process that can take anywhere from two weeks to one month. An industrial use case in the Eclipse Arrowhead project demonstrates how this time can be reduced to merely minutes.

Initial results show that Europe’s largest project for industrial digitization and automation is on track to exceed expectations. At a recent conference, results from industrial partners demonstrated that the Eclipse Arrowhead project is delivering solutions that can be used in a wide variety of industrial applications. Eclipse Arrowhead solutions are helping modern production units reduce engineering costs while improving quality and speed. The results include improved industrial efficiency, better energy management and a reduced environmental impact for a range of sectors. With one year still remaining, it is clear that the project is leading the way for a new era of European industry.

Ontologies represent data domains as sets of concepts and the relationships between them. Ontologies are often created at different times, by different engineers with their own approaches and viewpoints. This leads to different developers using different vocabularies, something called semantic heterogeneity, which creates interoperability issues that limit an effective exchange of knowledge. Global or shared ontologies aim to identify common elements and can save time and resources by enabling sets of classes, properties and axioms to be reused.

NodeRED is a flow-based programming tool with a visual approach to programming that allows hardware, APIs and online services to easily be wired together from a web browser.

Digital twin technology is crucial for improving sustainability and competitive advantage in the shift to Industry 4.0. Creating a digital representation of a physical asset and using IoT technology to connect it to the cloud, allows for low cost predictive maintenance, extensive remote monitoring and even real-time optimisation of machinery and processes. Digital twins also facilitate efficient Product Life-cycle Management. A traditional barrier to digital twinning has been high engineering and development costs, meaning that these benefits have not been readily available to small and medium-sized enterprises.