Powering flexible manufacturing systems with intelligent contact-less power transfer

Flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) and reconfigurable manufacturing systems (RMS) have both recently evolved to meet increasing demands for flexible manufacturing. This paper investigates the possibility of contact-less power and wireless data transfer to increase the flexibility and safety of various FMS modules by eliminating the need for power or data connections. The paper discusses advantages and implementation aspects of the proposed inductive power transfer (IPT) system and feasibility tests are undertaken to ensure the compatibility of IPT and the FMS modules, which form part of a lab-size modular test bed. In order to increase the cost effectiveness of the design, each module will run for an eight hour shift using a battery which is then automatically recharged via IPT. An energy aware custom switch mode charger has been designed and tested. A greedy heuristic (IEC 61499 compliant) scheduler is implemented to optimize the production schedule based on the level of charge. Design requirements for the charger, energy monitor and scheduler are discussed followed by performance results. The IPT system has been specified however it is still to be incorporated in to the final system.