The FORA European Training Network on Fog Computing for Robotics and Industrial Automation

Fog Computing for Robotics and Industrial Automation, FORA, was a European Training Network which focused on future industrial automation architectures and applications based on an emerging technology, called Fog Computing. The research project focused on research related to Fog Computing with applicability to industrial automation and manufacturing. The main outcome of the FORA project was the development of a deterministic Fog Computing Platform (FCP) to be used for implementing industrial automation and robotics solutions for Industry 4.0. This paper reports on the scientific outcomes of the FORA project. FORA has proposed a reference system architecture for Fog Computing, which was published as an open Architecture Analysis Design Language (AADL) model. The technologies developed in FORA include fog nodes and hypervisors, resource management mechanisms and middleware for deploying scalable Fog Computing applications, while guaranteeing the non-functional properties of the virtualized industrial control applications, and methods and processes for assuring the safety and security of the FCP. Several industrial use cases were used to evaluate the suitability of the FORA FCP for the Industrial IoT area, and to demonstrate how the platform can be used to develop industrial control applications and data analytics applications.