Integrating multimedia communications into an MMS environment

This paper presents an approach of network resource management in a heterog eneous manufacturing LANs environment in order to integrate multimedia serv ices. The primary objective is to define a uniformed communication interfac e with which the multimedia functionality can be integrated into the distri buted manufacturing applications. The proposed model extends the Virtual Ma nufacturing Device (VMD) concept defined in the international standard Manu facturing Message Specification (MMS) in order to virtualise the communicat ion systems. A virtual server, named Virtual Communication Support (VCS), i s defined to provide the transparent services on the QoS (Quality of Servic e) parameters negotiation, the communication channel establishment/terminat ion and QoS monitoring in a standardised constrained industrial communicati ons framework. Multimedia application and traditional manufacturing applica tions have to co-exist in a standardised MMS environment. Furthermore the V CS model provides the support for the possible real-time extension of MMS. A platform of implementation, named PLACOMAP, is presented to illustrate a multimedia enhanced manufacturing application in a heterogeneous communicat ion context where different types of networks, ATM, ETHERNET and MAP are in volved. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.