A curated list of various resources related to machine Capabilties and Skills. In case you don't know what capabilities and skills in the context of manufacturing are:
Capabilities and Skills aim at a machine-interpretable description and encapsulated implementation of automation functions.
- Capabilities represent a description of the functions that a machine can potentially perform. This description may include possible inputs and outputs as well as constraints to further specify a capability's application. Capabilities are modeled using technologies such as Semantic Web Technologies, the Asset Administration Shell or similar information modeling technologies
- Skills on the other hand are an encapsulated implementation with an invocation interface. Think of a Skill like a web service. The actual implementation is often considered as a black box, while a so-called Skill Interface is provided to interact with a skill. A Skill's interface typically features a machine-interpretable description, too. In automation OPC UA is often used to implement a skill interface.
You can easily add something to this list by creating a pull request with your changes. Just edit the Readme.md file and propose your additions with a short explanation. There is also a Wish List for things you would like to have but which are not on this list.
If you don't know what an Awesome List is, see this awesome manifesto. And for other Awesome Lists, checkout the Awesome List Github Topic
- Standards & Specifications
- Models
- Software Tools & Demos
- Publications
- Working Groups
- Projects
- Companies and Academic Institutes
This section features links to relevant standards and similar publications
- Reference Model for Capabilities, Skills and Services - Technically not a "real" standard, but a set of mutually agreed definitions published by the Plattform Industrie 4.0
This section contains links to existing models to express capabilities and skills
- CSS-Ontology - A rather generic OWL ontology implementing the Reference Model for Capabilities, Skills and Services
- CaSk - An OWL ontology extending the CSS-Ontology by more specific model elements. Still a generic model that has more specific extensions.
- CaSkMan - An OWL ontology extending CaSk to model capabilities and skills in manufacturing
- AAS Capability Submodel - Asset Administration Shell submodel to express capabilities
- AAS Control Component Submodel - Asset Administration Shell submodel to model skills ❔ (needs clarification)
In this section, software tools and demo applications are listed. These tools may cover the whole lifecycle of capabilities and skills. From engineering over process planning to actual execution.
- SkillMEx - A manufacturing execution system for skill-based manufacturing. Capabilities and skills can be registered and executed using SkillMEx
- SkillUp - A Java framework to implement skills. Automatically generates a state machine, an ontology description and OPC UA server (or web server) for execution. Uses the CaSkMan ontology.
- PLC2Skill - An automated mapping approach to convert PLC programs written in IEC 61131-3 to a capability and skill ontology. Can be used to register capabilities and skills with SkillMEx.
- MTP2Skill - Converts a Module Type Package into a capability & skill ontology. Can be used to register capabilities and skills with SkillMEx.
This section contains papers to be highlighted because they are of a more general interest. This could be survey papers consolidating a lot of research, or papers especially pointing out challenges as well as papers with fundamental definitons. Please note however, that this list cannot track all papers in this research area 😉
- Malakuti et al. Challenges in Skill-based Engineering of Industrial Automation Systems, 2018 DOI - Presents open challenges in capability-based engineering. Note that the term definition of "skill" doesn't match the current definition.
- Froschauer et al. Capabilities and Skills in Manufacturing: A Survey Over the Last Decade of ETFA, 2022 DOI - Survey paper covering research about capabilities and skills that was presented at IEEE ETFA conferences over the last 10 years.
An overview on working groups working on capability and skill standardization
- IDTA working group about AAS capability submodel
- IDTA working group about AAS control component submodel
- Plattform Industrie 4.0 working group about a meta model of capability and skills
A list of projects (ongoing and finished) with a connection to capabilities and skills
- ReCaM (11/2015 - 10/2018) - EU project about rapid reconfiguration of production systems through capability-based adaptation
- [BaSys 4.0] (07/2016 - 06/2019) - German project funded by BMBF, in which a reference architectur for production systems in Industrie 4.0 was defined and an open source middleware (Eclipse BaSyx) was developed.
A list of companies, university groups and other research institutions working in this field