SELF- RECONFIGURABLE SOFTWARE ARCHITECUTRE: DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION

ABSTRACT: To respond quickly to the rapidly changing manufacturing environment, it is imperative for the system to have such capabilities as flexibility, adaptability, and reusability. The fractal manufacturing system (FrMS) is a new manufacturing paradigm designed to meet these requirements. Through its dynamic restructuring process (DRP), the FrMS is able to reorganize the system’s configuration by its definition. To facilitate a dynamic reconfiguration of system elements (i.e., fractals), fractals as well as software modules should be self-reconfigurable. Embodiment of a selfreconfigurable manufacturing system is achieved by using self-reconfigurable software architecture. In this paper, therefore, self-reconfigurable software architecture is designed by conducting the following studies: (1) analysis of functional requirements of a fractal and environmental constraints, (2) design of reconfigurable software architecture, (3) selection of proper techniques to implement software modules, and realization of software architecture equipped with self-reconfigurability. To validate this approach, the designed architecture is applied to the FrMS