System of systems for industrial automation : towards energy efficient systems

Nowadays, energy is one of the most misused resources on Earth. This phenomenon is caused because of the continuing technological expansion in different areas such as building automation, oil & power, industry in general, and much more areas where energy consumption is extremely high. As the future generations are very important, the main aim is to prepare proposals, based on new models, in order to reduce the energy consumption and generate energy efficient systems. Industrial automation is an area where energy efficiency can be reached by innovating automation and control systems, designing and implementing architectural innovative models to the actual systems available today. This also implies the existence of an adequate communication and integration of system components to allow the collection of energy related information starting from the single devices like sensors and actuator, operator rooms, control stations, and even remote supervision systems located far from the shop floor. This data allows that emerging functionalities and capabilities which appear from the interaction of the individual systems will react to succeed any specific goal. In order to reach such integration, a System of Systems (SoS) approach can be the architectural solution where the individual systems will keep their management independence, operational independence, individual properties and functionalities, heterogeneity, but at the same time, their interaction will generate new emergent functionalities, properties, and capabilities facilitating evolvable structures and behaviors, which are not present in the individual systems, it would also depend on the dimension and extension of the SoS. The System of Systems has an initial set of characteristics and properties, which match with the complexity and set of requirements exposed by Energy Management Systems. Regarding to the industrial automation, a System of Systems configuration could be reached by fitting the integrated subsystems with the concept of System of Systems. A correct energy management of the System of Systems will be a key point in order to achieve the main goal of having energy efficient System of Systems. The high levels of energy consumed in industrial automated systems such as conveying, packaging, hoisting systems, automated machine solutions, and system of systems, require an optimal regulation of energy consumption. Technology has a key role in order to achieve this goal, for this reason, global market leaders in the electrical context are developing new models and tools towards a sustainable energy management. The multinational company Schneider Electric (=S=) belongs to that group of global market leaders which has already generated a new strategy based on a four-step method to generate benefits in two ways: energy cost savings to the customer and energy efficiency to the environment, and the implementation of new libraries added to an automation programming software platform makes energy monitoring process an easier job. This dissertation describes a body of research which has been done on applying the concept of Energy Management and System of Systems to the Industrial Automation context. In this work, a literature review and summary of European research projects of the different technological components of today’s Industrial Automation and Energy Management have been presented. Based on all the collected information, some case studies have been executed such as: to a European project towards large System of Systems, to managerial decision-making process at Schneider Electric towards Sustainability, and to the actual Energy Management strategies used by Schneider Electric; as a result of these studies, a new Industrial Automated Energy Efficient System of Systems (iaEESoS) model has been suggested towards energy efficient System of Systems. Also, in order to validate the described new model, a collaborative research has been executed while implementing the new suggested iaEESoS to Schneider Electric and adapting a new Six-phase Energy Efficiency Integrated (6EEI) model for =S=, and this model implemented into a real life water pumping system. To finalize, conclusions and a perspective for future researches have been proposed. Finally, as a summary it can be established that the main purpose of this research is to present an Energy Management approach based on a topic that today has a lot of importance worldwide. As energy consumption in Super Systems could increase, the objective is to generate an Energy Efficient System of Systems.