Flexibility of manufacturing systems is an essential factor in maintaining the competitiveness of industrial production. Flexibility can be defined in several ways and according to several factors, but in order to obtain adequate results in implementing a flexible manufacturing system able to compete on the market, a high level of autonomy (free of human intervention) of the manufacturing system must be achieved. There are many factors that can disturb the production process and reduce the autonomy of the system, because of the need of human intervention to overcome these disturbances. One of these factors is tool wear. The aim of this paper is to present an experimental study on the possibility to determine the state of tool wear in a flexible manufacturing cell environment, using image acquisition and processing methods.

An unbalanced propeller can affect a quadcopter’s performance due to vibration, also decreasing its thrust’s yield. Analyses were conducted to determine the correlation between vibration in the dynamic movement of a balanced and an imbalanced propeller using a laser vibrometer (portable digital vibrometer) PDV-100, to determine the correlation between propeller rotational speed and its vibration, as well as to determine the propeller’s maximum rotational speed to avoid over-vibration. The vibration analysis was conducted on a carbon fiber 2-blade propeller by comparing the results of vibration tests with the propeller blade contour. The vibration response of the propeller has been analyzed at three points, respectively the hub, the center, and the tip of the blade, to determine the point having the largest value of the vibration on the propeller running at a maximum rotation speed of 7000 rpm. The same analysis was made on two propellers: the first one of type 1340 with a diameter of 13 inches and the second one of type 1447 with a diameter of 14 inches. The vibration was reduced by propeller’s static balancing, thus increasing the propeller stability. The result showed that an imbalanced propeller generated a decrease in the rotational speed and higher vibration values compared to the balanced propeller. The vibration values showed a linear dependency to the rotor speed; the higher the speed, the bigger the vibration. The limit of rotational speed for the balanced model of the 1340 type propeller was 5000 rpm whilst the corresponding value for the 1447 type propeller was 4500 rpm. Finally, the result was used to optimize the propeller’s overall performance.

Production systems must be flexible and endowed with techniques and tools allowing an automatic recovery of errors. And so, the subject of error recovery in flexible manufacturing system is always an open issue. The objective of this work consists in proposing a new type of software framework for error troubleshooting in a flexible manufacturing system that is perceived as an Intelligent Space (iSpace). Our framework system is designed to solve the failures in the functioning of the FMS and to generate self-training from previous experience.

The University of Oradea is working on developing a research base in material sciences with capabilities of vacuum deposition. The laboratory will be equipped with two deposition system along with with other research equipment, mainly an atomic force microscope and a Nano indenter for material characterization. This paper presents the continuity of our efforts to install two vacuum deposition systems that will be part of the SMARTMAT Laboratory at the University of Oradea. As steps were made in cleaning the equipment, we now focus on obtaining high vacuum. In this process, a constant monitoring solution of the pressure inside the chamber is required, and the steps taken to realize it are presented in this paper. The main focus of the paper is the data acquisition system implemented for monitoring several parameters of which vacuum is the most important. The system will be based on two Pfeiffer Gauges for vacuum and a National Instruments PXI system.