Papers by Kleanthis Thramboulidis
EURASIP Journal on Embedded Systems, 2008
Currently available toolsets for the development of embedded systems adopt traditional architectu... more Currently available toolsets for the development of embedded systems adopt traditional architectural styles and do not cover the whole requirements of the development process, with extensibility being the major drawback. In this paper, a service-oriented architectural framework that exploits semantic web is defined. Features required in the development process are defined as web services and published into the public domain, so as to be used on demand by developers to construct their projects' specific integrated development environments (IDEs). The infrastructure required to build a web service-based IDE is presented. Specific web services are defined and the way these services affect the development process is discussed. Special focus is given on the device model and the means that such a modelling can significantly improve the development process. A prototype implementation demonstrates the applicability and usefulness of the proposed demand-led development process in the industrial automation domain.
Teaching object-oriented programming in introductory computer courses is still an area not well... more Teaching object-oriented programming in introductory computer courses is still an area not well understood by instructors and teachers. A new approach, quite different from the one used to teach the procedural paradigm, is required. We have developed and used for several years a teaching approach that is greatly influenced by constructivism, which stresses the importance of prior knowledge on top of which new knowledge is built. A real-life system was adopted, to exploit the prior knowledge that students have from every-day life. This perspective guided us in making a shift in focus from the algorithm-centered view to the software-engineering-centered view and more precisely to a design-first approach. We also recognized the need imposed by the complexity and the event driven nature of today’s applications, for improved techniques and mechanisms concerning exception handling, garbage collection and concurrency. In this paper we describe the constructivism-based approach that we us...
2016 IEEE 25th International Symposium on Industrial Electronics (ISIE), 2016
There has been an increasing interest of the research community in mechatronics over the last yea... more There has been an increasing interest of the research community in mechatronics over the last years since current practices are unable to address the complexity of today's mechatronic systems. New methodologies are being proposed to address the challenges in the mechatronics domain. However, the communication gap, which exists between the various disciplines involved in mechatronic systems, makes the task of defining new methodologies very difficult. Moreover, there is no commonly used terminology, which makes the task of comparing or unifying these methodologies hard. In this paper, we refine our approach for synergistic integration in mechatronics and we attempt to establish a basic terminology and framework in this domain. It is claimed that main challenges in mechatronic system development including synergistic integration, size and complexity, reuse, as well as requirements handling and traceability, support for decision making, and maintaining consistency, are successfully addressed by the 3+1 SysML-view model approach. It is argued that the proper integration of Model Integrated Mechatronics (MIM) with SysML, on which the 3+1 SysML-view model is based, is a promising platform for a solid framework for mechatronic systems development.
The Industrial Process Measurement and Control Systems (IPMCS) architect has a plethora of fieldb... more The Industrial Process Measurement and Control Systems (IPMCS) architect has a plethora of fieldbuses to select. Many different proprietary fieldbuses, each one supporting different standards and targeting particular market requirements, have been installed in the industry in different time periods under different circumstances. There is an always-growing need to integrate the control applications of the above fieldbuses making interoperability in device and fieldbus level as well as real-timelines the key issues in the area of IPMCSs. In this paper we suggest an approach towards interoperability in the fieldbus level. This approach, that would make possible the interconnection of two or more distant fieldbuses over a common backbone, comes to assist process and systems engineers in the development and configuration of distributed IPMCSs. We also present the first step towards implementation, which was defined to include the interconnection of two fieldbuses of the same type. We chose as a case study PROFIBUS due to its popularity and wide acceptance.
Wseas Transactions on Computers, 2009
The Function Block (FB) model was first standardized by the 1131 standard of the International El... more The Function Block (FB) model was first standardized by the 1131 standard of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) for programmable controllers. This standard was successfully adopted by the industry but it seems to have several constraints for the development of ...
The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 2015
Assembly systems constitute one of the most important fields in today's industry. In this paper w... more Assembly systems constitute one of the most important fields in today's industry. In this paper we propose an open distributed architecture for the engineering of evolvable flexible hybrid assembly systems. The proposed architecture is based on the model driven development paradigm. Models are used to represent structure and behavior and a domain specific engineering tool is defined to facilitate the assembly system engineer in the engineering process of the assembly system. Specific meta models are defined to capture domain knowledge to guide the engineer in the construction of the models required to construct the assembly system. This work is a specialization of our previous work that defined a SOA based framework for embedded industrial automation systems. It adapts and extends, in the assembly systems domain, the 3+1 SysML-view model architecture defined for the engineering of mechatronics Manufacturing systems. The proposed architecture can be used to develop a framework for evolvable flexible and reconfigurable assembly systems that would exploit the benefits the Cyber Physical paradigm utilizing web technologies, the IoT, the Cloud computing and Big Data.
Object-Orientation seems to be, at this time, the most promising approach to address the majority... more Object-Orientation seems to be, at this time, the most promising approach to address the majority of software development problems. However, most of the world's data is stored in legacy database systems like relational databases, hierarchical, network, or even just flat files. Data will continue to reside there for a long time. There is a need to preserve this tremendous investment, on the one hand, and to benefit from the object technology on the other. This paper describes a solution to this problem as well as the lessons learned during the development of a Java client for a specific legacy system. Three different ways to interface Java clients to legacy applications are considered: a) using a CORBA compliant ORB, b) using the Java Remote Method Invocation (JRMI) and c) using Remote Procedure Call (RPC).
International Journal of Industrial and Systems Engineering
System safety is the property of the system that characterises its ability to prevent from hazard... more System safety is the property of the system that characterises its ability to prevent from hazards, which may lead to accidents. Traditionally, system developers are not familiar with system safety analysis processes which are performed by safety engineers. One reason is the gap that exists between the traditional development processes, methodologies, notations and tools and the ones used in safety engineering. Semi-formal notations that support a coherent modelling of a system are considered mandatory for safety critical systems. With the evolvement of ...
This is an implementation of the Liqueur Plant system used as case study in the corresponding pap... more This is an implementation of the Liqueur Plant system used as case study in the corresponding paper. The design was based on the 3+1 SysML-view model. It has been implemented as a Lab exercise.
Computers in Industry, 2015
Mechatronics, 2015
, a design methodology, based on the W life cycle process model, is presented and SysML is propos... more , a design methodology, based on the W life cycle process model, is presented and SysML is proposed as a tool to support the whole development process. In this letter, we discuss the presented approach, we point out technical errors and raise additional issues that might help in making the proposed approach applicable.
ETFA 2001. 8th International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation. Proceedings (Cat. No.01TH8597), 2001
The Function Block (FB) concept is proposed by evolving standards to address most of the problems... more The Function Block (FB) concept is proposed by evolving standards to address most of the problems encountered in the development process of distributed Industrial Process Measurement and Control Systems (IPMCS) applications. To increase modularity, reliability and expandability of FB-based IPMCS applications as well as to automate the development process and increase reusability, new generation FB-oriented Engineering Support Systems (ESS), are highly required. These ESSs should be able to exploit FBs provided by intelligent field devices, which are expected to appear in the market in the near future, and also assign functionality to the great number of different field devices that already exist in the market. A common field device model is strongly required to accomplish both the above tasks. In the context of this work, we consider the requirements for the field device model imposed both by the development of the FB-oriented ESSs and the demand for device interoperability during the fieldbus operation phase. We use the Unified Modelling Language (UML) to proceed to the definition of the field device model. This model, combined with our 4-layer IPMCS architecture, constitutes a framework that facilitates the development of open FB-oriented ESSs.
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Papers by Kleanthis Thramboulidis