Cloud Manufacturing platform architecture

With a new trend of service orientation, high efficiency and low consumption, and knowledge innovation in global manufacturing, networked manufacturing is facing great challenges. Cloud Manufacturing, as a new service-oriented agile manufacturing paradigm over networks, deriving from the idea of Cloud Computing, can provide on-demand collaborative services supporting whole life circle manufacturing applications by sharing virtualized manufacturing resources via cloud networks. The achievement of this promising paradigm depends on powerful Cloud Manufacturing platform which meets the requirements of both resource providers and consumers. This paper presents a design of Cloud Manufacturing platform architecture which includes resource perception layer, virtual resource layer, middleware layer, application supporting layer, and user interface layer. The design can give comprehensive support to achieve the goal of Cloud Manufacturing. We also discuss the key technologies in Cloud Manufacturing platform, which presents a map for future research of this new area.