Configurable Virtual Manufacturing Environment Modelling and Simulation

This paper reports a method of modelling configurable virtual manufacturing environments to support their rapid construction for knowledge representation, acquisition, and shop-floor simulation. The new approach relies on a set of master virtual environments which acting as templates at application environment run-time. These master environments are developed in a consistent layered structure and stored in database which enables environment and objects data management and control. A framework is developed and its computing implementation practiced in this research to adopt this new approach. An integrated and unified interface is provided to support environment modification, manufacturing system configuration and shop-floor control simulation.