A Service Based Wireless Sensor Networks Architecture for High Value-Added Process Monitoring

Current research in high value-added manufacturing processes, such as the Micro Injection Molding (μIM) process, focuses on the monitoring of the machine process data., which could potentially affect the quality of the end product. Up until now, machine process monitoring has been limited to the machine level and has often bypassed the ambient environmental factors and pre manufacturing factors, which could have direct impact on the end product quality. In light of this, extending the monitoring of high value-added processes to include the ambient manufacturing environment would have numerous benefits in terms of process monitoring accuracy, material condition and product quality. In this paper, we present a novel Service Orientated Architecture (SOA) for monitoring a high value-added manufacturing process and its ambient environment using Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN). The proposed architecture applies the SOA to a network of wireless sensor nodes installed in the uIM machine and the industrial micro-molding environment. Here we present; the generic architectural design, system integration, user interfaces, and initial test results for an experimental testbed system.