Applications of Semantic Web Technologies for the Engineering of Automated Production Systems—Three Use Cases

The increasing necessity to adapt automated production systemsSystemautomated production system rapidly to changing requirements requires a better support for planning, developing and operating automated production systems. One means to improve the engineeringEngineering of these complex systems is the use of modelsModel, thereby abstracting the view on the system and providing a common base to improve understanding and communication between engineers. However, in order for any engineering project to be successful, it is essential to keep the created engineering models consistent. We envision the use of Semantic Web Technologies for such consistency checks in the domain of Model-Based EngineeringModel-Based Engineering. In this chapter, we show how Semantic Web TechnologiesSemantic Websemantic Web technologies can support consistency checking for the engineering process in the automated production systems domain through three distinct use casesUse cases: In a first use case, we illustrate the combination of a Systems Modeling Language-based notation with Web Ontology Language (OWL)Web Ontology LanguageseeOWL to ensure compatibility between mechatronicMechatronic modules after a module change. A second use case demonstrates the application of OWL with the SPARQL Query LanguageSPARQL Query Language to ensure consistency during model-based requirements and test case design for automated production systems. In a third use case, it is shown how the combination of the Resource Description Framework (RDF)Resource Description FrameworkseeRDF and the SPARQL Query Language can be used to identify inconsistencies between interdisciplinary engineering models of automated production systems. We conclude with opportunities of applying Semantic Web Technologies to support the engineering of automated production systems and derive the research questions that need to be answered in future work.