People

Thesis - Commissioning a “Turtlebot 4 Lite” Mobile Robot and connecting it to a Beckhoff PLC via MQTT based on an industrial use case

Tasks

Onboarding & System Understanding:

• Onboarding into the Robot Operating System (ROS 2) and the hardware architecture of the TurtleBot 4 Lite (Raspberry Pi 4, Create® 3 Base, LiDAR, camera).
• Introduction to PLC programming with TwinCAT 3 and the MQTT protocol (publish/subscribe architecture, broker structures).

Commissioning & Basic Configuration of the Robot:

• Initial commissioning of the TurtleBot 4 Lite and configuration of the onboard Raspberry Pi on the university’s Wi-Fi network.
• Validation of basic ROS 2 functionalities (navigation, SLAM mapping, sensor readout via Nav2/Rviz).

Design & Setup of the Communication Infrastructure:

• Selection and setup of a suitable MQTT broker (e.g., Eclipse Mosquitto) in the lab network.
• Development or configuration of a lightweight MQTT bridge on the Raspberry Pi (e.g., using ready-made ROS 2 MQTT nodes or a compact Python script via paho-mqtt) to translate ROS topics into MQTT messages.
• Set up MQTT communication on the PLC side in TwinCAT 3 using function blocks from the TF6701 IoT Data Agent or Tc3_IotBase libraries.

Definition of the data model & use case implementation:

• Interface definition: Specifying which data (e.g., position coordinates, battery status, movement commands, enable bits) is exchanged between the robot and the PLC.
• Programming the logic on the Beckhoff PLC (e.g., via Structured Text) to control the industrial scenario (sequence of steps for the logistics process).
• Implementation of high-level sequence control on the robot based on the MQTT commands received from the PLC.
• Programming the logic on the Beckhoff PLC (e.g., using Structured Text) to control the industrial scenario (sequence of steps for the logistics process).
• Implementation of high-level sequence control on the robot based on the MQTT commands received from the PLC.

Testing, Validation & Documentation:

• Commissioning of the entire system in the lab and conducting test runs of the selected industrial use case.
• Analysis of system performance (e.g., determining latency of the Wi-Fi/MQTT connection, reliability of message transmission).
• Preparation of practical documentation and a brief guide (tutorials) for future students in the lab.

www.youtube.com/watch

Use of Generative AI in Manufacturing Automation for the Automated Parameterization of Smart Field Devices (Sensors, Actuators)

A wide variety of sensors and actuators for use in automated manufacturing and assembly systems are now available on the market for many different tasks. Each of these field devices offers the advantage of being able to capture a range of measurement signals for process evaluation and providing on-board sensor signal processing (edge computing). However, taking full advantage of these benefits requires a significant amount of development effort to optimally configure the field devices for different applications. This thesis focuses on the IO-Link standard.

The goal of this thesis is to establish the fundamentals of how agents can be used in conjunction with generative AI (prompting, vibe coding) and, in combination with messaging (countercyclic communication), how the generated parameter sets can be directly deployed to the actual hardware. 

Ideally, by the end of this thesis, smart sensors and actuators from various manufacturers will be able to be automatically identified and configured based on interactive user input.

Vermittlung von Praktika und Abschlussarbeiten für Studierende zu Firmen über TTZ-MSP in Marktheidenfeld im Landkreis Main-Spessart

2024 ist das TTZ-MSP in Marktheidenfeld gestartet. 

Ein Konsortium namhafter Industrieunternehmen aus dem Landkreis Main-Spessart bietet laufend industrierelevante Praktika, Abschlussarbeiten und Projekte an.

Alle Studierende die Lust auf die Bearbeitung von Themen in der additiven Fertigung, der Produktentwicklung für 3D Druck, der Fertigungsautomatisierung und Digitalisierung der Produktion haben, bitte ich auf mich zuzukommen. 

Ich helfe Ihnen sehr gerne bei der Vermittlung zu den richtigen Ansprechpartnern der Unternehmen. 

Alexander Versch