Agent-based Gateway Operating System for RFID-enabled ubiquitous manufacturing enterprise

Capturing and processing of real-time manufacturing shop floor field data is essential in improving the performance of shop floor planning, execution and control. Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) has enabled real-time information visibility and realized ubiquitous manufacturing enterprises with proper functionalities of Enterprise Information Systems (EISs). This paper presents a flexible, modularized and re-configurable framework for the new generation RFID middleware system, named Gateway Operating System (GOS). It is an overall software solution designed and proposed not only to address basic functions of RFID middleware system, but also to overcome the particular challenges and requirements for real-life manufacturing scenarios. GOS aims to provide an easy-to-deploy, simple-to-use and affordable RFID middleware solution for manufacturing applications. A multi-agent based model, named gateway smart agent manager, is designed to enable the heterogeneous RFID devices in a "Plug and Play" fashion and to cope with the changes from these connected hardware devices. To guarantee the versatility and scalability of GOS, an XML (eXtensible Markup Language) based message exchanging protocol is designed to fulfill the communication and interactions between applications and devices. Based on this protocol, an easy-to-deploy and simple-to-use application manager is built to manage, configure and use the connected devices as well as deployed applications. The proposed GOS will provide a new referenced framework for the development of lightweight RFID middleware system for manufacturing environment. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.