Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

All Outputs (18)

Optimal Manufacturing Configuration Selection: Sequential Decision Making and Optimization using Reinforcement Learning (2023)
Journal Article
Torayev, A., Abadia, J. J. P., Martínez-Arellano, G., Cuesta, M., Chaplin, J. C., Larrinaga, F., …Ratchev, S. (2023). Optimal Manufacturing Configuration Selection: Sequential Decision Making and Optimization using Reinforcement Learning. Procedia CIRP, 120, 986-991. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2023.09.112

In manufacturing, different costs must be considered when selecting the optimal manufacturing configuration. Costs include manufacturing costs, material costs, labor costs, and overhead costs. Optimal manufacturing configurations are those that minim... Read More about Optimal Manufacturing Configuration Selection: Sequential Decision Making and Optimization using Reinforcement Learning.

A modular artificial intelligence and asset administration shell approach to streamline testing processes in manufacturing services (2023)
Journal Article
Rehman, H. U., Mo, F., Chaplin, J. C., Zarzycki, L., Jones, M., & Ratchev, S. (2024). A modular artificial intelligence and asset administration shell approach to streamline testing processes in manufacturing services. Journal of Manufacturing Systems, 72, 424-436. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmsy.2023.12.004

The increasing demand for personalized products and cost-effectiveness has highlighted the necessity of integrating intelligence into production systems. This integration is crucial for enabling intelligent control that can adapt to variations in fea... Read More about A modular artificial intelligence and asset administration shell approach to streamline testing processes in manufacturing services.

PLC orchestration automation to enhance human–machine integration in adaptive manufacturing systems (2023)
Journal Article
Mo, F., Ugarte Querejeta, M., Hellewell, J., Rehman, H. U., Illarramendi Rezabal, M., Chaplin, J. C., …Ratchev, S. (2023). PLC orchestration automation to enhance human–machine integration in adaptive manufacturing systems. Journal of Manufacturing Systems, 71, 172-187. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmsy.2023.07.015

Current approaches to manufacturing must evolve to respond to increasing demands for short product life cycles and customised products. Adaptive manufacturing systems integrate advanced technologies, automation, and data-driven methodologies to devel... Read More about PLC orchestration automation to enhance human–machine integration in adaptive manufacturing systems.

Semantic models and knowledge graphs as manufacturing system reconfiguration enablers (2023)
Journal Article
Mo, F., Chaplin, J. C., Sanderson, D., Martínez-Arellano, G., & Ratchev, S. (2024). Semantic models and knowledge graphs as manufacturing system reconfiguration enablers. Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing, 86, Article 102625. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rcim.2023.102625

Reconfigurable Manufacturing System (RMS) provides a cost-effective approach for manufacturers to adapt to fluctuating market demands by reconfiguring assets through automated analysis of asset utilization and resource allocation. Achieving this auto... Read More about Semantic models and knowledge graphs as manufacturing system reconfiguration enablers.

Online and Modular Energy Consumption Optimization of Industrial Robots (2023)
Journal Article
Torayev, A., Martinez-Arellano, G., Chaplin, J. C., Sanderson, D., & Ratchev, S. (2024). Online and Modular Energy Consumption Optimization of Industrial Robots. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, 20(2), 1198-1207. https://doi.org/10.1109/TII.2023.3272692

Industrial robots contribute to a considerable amount of energy consumption in manufacturing. However, modeling the energy consumption of industrial robots is a complex problem as it requires considering components such as the robot controller, fans... Read More about Online and Modular Energy Consumption Optimization of Industrial Robots.

Capacity Modelling and Measurement for Smart Elastic Manufacturing Systems (2023)
Journal Article
Elshafei, B., Mo, F., Chaplin, J. C., Arellano, G. M., & Ratchev, S. (2023). Capacity Modelling and Measurement for Smart Elastic Manufacturing Systems. SAE Technical Papers, Article 2023-01-0997. https://doi.org/10.4271/2023-01-0997

Aerospace manufacturing is improving its productivity and growth by expanding its capacity for production by investing in new tools and more equipment to provide additional capacity and flexibility in the face of widespread supply disruptions and unp... Read More about Capacity Modelling and Measurement for Smart Elastic Manufacturing Systems.

A maturity model for the autonomy of manufacturing systems (2023)
Journal Article
Mo, F., Monetti, F. M., Torayev, A., Rehman, H. U., Mulet Alberola, J. A., Rea Minango, N., …Chaplin, J. C. (2023). A maturity model for the autonomy of manufacturing systems. International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 126(1-2), 405-428. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-023-10910-7

Modern manufacturing has to cope with dynamic and changing circumstances. Market fluctuations, the effects caused by unpredictable material shortages, highly variable product demand, and worker availability all require system robustness, flexibility,... Read More about A maturity model for the autonomy of manufacturing systems.

A framework for manufacturing system reconfiguration and optimisation utilising digital twins and modular artificial intelligence (2023)
Journal Article
Mo, F., Rehman, H. U., Monetti, F. M., Chaplin, J. C., Sanderson, D., Popov, A., …Ratchev, S. (2023). A framework for manufacturing system reconfiguration and optimisation utilising digital twins and modular artificial intelligence. Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing, 82, Article 102524. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rcim.2022.102524

Digital twins and artificial intelligence have shown promise for improving the robustness, responsiveness, and productivity of industrial systems. However, traditional digital twin approaches are often only employed to augment single, static systems... Read More about A framework for manufacturing system reconfiguration and optimisation utilising digital twins and modular artificial intelligence.

Service Based Approach to Asset Administration Shell for Controlling Testing Processes in Manufacturing (2022)
Journal Article
Rehman, H. U., Chaplin, J. C., Zarzycki, L., Mo, F., Jones, M., & Ratchev, S. (2022). Service Based Approach to Asset Administration Shell for Controlling Testing Processes in Manufacturing. IFAC-PapersOnLine, 55(10), 1852-1857. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ifacol.2022.09.668

The rise in demand for customised products and lower costs has generated the need for incorporating intelligence in production systems. Intelligence is the main driver for enabling intelligent control in production systems to meet feature, part and c... Read More about Service Based Approach to Asset Administration Shell for Controlling Testing Processes in Manufacturing.

Towards Modular and Plug-and-Produce Manufacturing Apps (2022)
Journal Article
Torayev, A., Martínez-Arellano, G., Chaplin, J. C., Sanderson, D., & Ratchev, S. (2022). Towards Modular and Plug-and-Produce Manufacturing Apps. Procedia CIRP, 107, 1257-1262. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2022.05.141

Industry 4.0 redefines manufacturing systems as smart and connected systems where software solutions provide additional capabilities to the manufacturing equipment. However, the connection of manufacturing equipment with software solutions is challen... Read More about Towards Modular and Plug-and-Produce Manufacturing Apps.

Towards Flexible, Fault Tolerant Hardware Service Wrappers for the Digital Manufacturing on a Shoestring Project (2020)
Journal Article
McNally, M. J., Chaplin, J. C., Martinez-Arellano, G., & Ratchev, S. (2020). Towards Flexible, Fault Tolerant Hardware Service Wrappers for the Digital Manufacturing on a Shoestring Project. IFAC-PapersOnLine, 53(3), 72-77. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ifacol.2020.11.065

The adoption of digital manufacturing in small to medium enterprises (SMEs) in the manufacturing sector in the UK is low, yet these technologies offer significant promise to boost productivity. Two major causes of this lack of uptake is the high upfr... Read More about Towards Flexible, Fault Tolerant Hardware Service Wrappers for the Digital Manufacturing on a Shoestring Project.

Affordable data integration approach for production enterprises (2020)
Journal Article
Sanderson, D., Chaplin, J. C., & Ratchev, S. (2020). Affordable data integration approach for production enterprises. Procedia CIRP, 93, 616-621. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2020.04.124

© 2020 The Authors. The manufacturing industries in a number of high-labour-cost economies are undergoing a shift towards increased automation and intelligence typified by the ‘Industry 4.0' paradigm. Advances from computer science research including... Read More about Affordable data integration approach for production enterprises.

Implementing large-scale Aerospace Assembly 4.0 demonstration systems? (2020)
Journal Article
Sanderson, D., Turner, A., Shires, E., Chaplin, J. C., & Ratchev, S. (2020). Implementing large-scale Aerospace Assembly 4.0 demonstration systems?. IFAC papers online, 53(2), 10267-10274. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ifacol.2020.12.2759

The Future Automated Aerospace Assembly phase 1 technology Demonstrator (FA3D) was commissioned at the University of Nottingham and used to demonstrate concepts from the EPSRC Evolvable Assembly Systems project in specific industrial use cases. A num... Read More about Implementing large-scale Aerospace Assembly 4.0 demonstration systems?.

A Function-Behaviour-Structure design methodology for adaptive production systems (2019)
Journal Article
Sanderson, D., Chaplin, J. C., & Ratchev, S. (2019). A Function-Behaviour-Structure design methodology for adaptive production systems. International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-019-03823-x

Adaptive production systems are a key trend in modern advanced manufacturing. This stems from the requirement for the system to respond to disruption , either in the form of product changes or changes to other operational parameters. The design and r... Read More about A Function-Behaviour-Structure design methodology for adaptive production systems.

Demonstration of Transformable Manufacturing Systems through the Evolvable Assembly Systems Project (2019)
Journal Article
Sanderson, D., Turner, A., Shires, E., Chaplin, J., & Ratchev, S. (2019). Demonstration of Transformable Manufacturing Systems through the Evolvable Assembly Systems Project. SAE Technical Papers, Article 2019-01-1363. https://doi.org/10.4271/2019-01-1363

© 2019 SAE International. All Rights Reserved. Evolvable Assembly Systems is a five year UK research council funded project into flexible and reconfigurable manufacturing systems. The principal goal of the research programme has been to define and va... Read More about Demonstration of Transformable Manufacturing Systems through the Evolvable Assembly Systems Project.

Synthesising process controllers from formal models of transformable assembly systems (2019)
Journal Article
De Silva, L., Felli, P., Sanderson, D., Chaplin, J. C., Logan, B., & Ratchev, S. (2019). Synthesising process controllers from formal models of transformable assembly systems. Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing, 58, 130-144. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rcim.2019.01.014

When producing complex and highly customisable products in low volumes (or in 'batch sizes of one'), automation of production systems is critical for competitiveness and profitability in high labour-cost economies. To facilitate batch-size-of-one pro... Read More about Synthesising process controllers from formal models of transformable assembly systems.

Toward process control from formal models of transformable manufacturing systems (2017)
Journal Article
Bakker, O. J., Chaplin, J. C., de Silva, L., Felli, P., Sanderson, D., Logan, B., & Ratchev, S. (2018). Toward process control from formal models of transformable manufacturing systems. Procedia CIRP, 63, 521-526. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2017.03.159

The automation and flexibility of production systems is a key step towards improved profitability and competitiveness in high labour cost areas, when producing high-complexity, low-volume products. In the Evolvable Assembly Systems (EAS) project, the... Read More about Toward process control from formal models of transformable manufacturing systems.

Photochromic molecular implementations of universal computation (2014)
Journal Article
Chaplin, J. C., Krasnogor, N., & Russell, N. A. (2014). Photochromic molecular implementations of universal computation. BioSystems, 126, 12-26. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biosystems.2014.09.004

Unconventional computing is an area of research in which novel materials and paradigms are utilised to implement computation. Previously we have demonstrated how registers, logic gates and logic circuits can be implemented, unconventionally, with a b... Read More about Photochromic molecular implementations of universal computation.