Social production system: A three-layer smart framework for implementing autonomous human-machine collaborations in a shop floor

The continuous fast-changing of production requirements and the development of advanced information technology have promoted the development of the production system in a more knowledge-intensive, resources-decentralized, and autonomous collaborative manner. In order to provide guidelines for the smart transformation of the production shop floor, this paper proposes a smart production system with a three-layer framework defined as the social production system (Social-PS) by integrating cyber-physical system (CPS), knowledge graph technology, and production-event driven model. The concept of smart resources (include smart operator, smart machine, smart workpiece, and smart gateway), social sensor, the unified information model is clarified to construct the physical carrier of Social-PS. The unified knowledge repository's overall construction method based on the knowledge graph is elaborated to provide task-resource-associated heterogeneous production data sharing and management for human-machine collaboration. Subsequently, to support the production dynamic monitoring and interaction, a production-event and active knowledge indexing model is proposed. Furthermore, to validate the proposed Social-PS framework, a software and hardware integrated prototype system is implemented to demonstrate the knowledge-driven human-machine collaboration of the production process, which provides a basis for realizing smart and autonomous production collaboration.