Autonomous product memories for industrial applications

Today, RFID is used to identify a wide range of work pieces or individual products for tracking their movements through the logistics chain. For future purposes there is a strong demand to make products more intelligent by extending the limited RFID identification technology. We propose in this paper an Autonomous Product Memory. This autonomous object requests, analyzes, evaluates, and stores data of the complete product life cycle and is also able to control parts of it. We introduce an architecture for integrating data in product memories and controlling parts of the surrounding infrastructure. Our contribution encompasses software modules for a uniform sensor access, a sensor data ontology, and an infrastructure for product memory applications. We additionally present a first prototype of our concepts, in which the autonomous object collects data in a factory automation scenario and is able to influence the production process.