Development of Distributed Virtual Factory by Integrating Database

Abstract

The Distributed Virtual Factory (DVF) based on the concept of distributed simulation has been proposed as a new simulation environment to evaluate the performance of large scale manufacturing systems. To develop a DVF, it is necessary to integrate existing area-level simulators independently modeled in each area via computer network. Area-level simulators must be equipped with three functions, such as communication, synchronization and data handling. Data handler manages external data which are required for each simulator. These functions are called communication interface. In this study, the data handler is implemented by utilizing database and a experimental DVF is developed by integrating various simulators under different environments.