Open automation of manufacturing systems through integration of ontology and web services

The paper illustrates an innovative solution for the control architecture of automated manufacturing systems, based on the integration of the ontology and web-services technologies, which allows an easy configuration, update and expansion of the control system. The result is a fully open environment for the operational control of manufacturing equipment allowing the easy and fast commissioning of new plants, the achievement of a “plug & produce” inclusion of new equipment and the substitution of the traditional control model, based on the hierarchical hardware architecture, with a new one based on a free series of pure software control levels which manage, via a web services communication network, a single-level population of controllers of the various equipment on the shop floor.