Compatibility
The Vipra virtual assistance system is compatible with any production line and follows the architecture shown above.
The sensors present within the production environment are usually already detected by different control systems. As manufacturers of the controllers, many different suppliers are established on the market and in use, from Siemens (e.g. S5, S7), Beckhoff, Sigmatek and B&R to many others. Each machine controller communicates via different protocols. To connect the various machine controllers to the virtual assistance system, so-called bridges are used to establish communication with the respective system, query the relevant data there and store it in the database of the virtual assistance system.
Within the system environment of the virtual assistance system, the so-called DATAdealer is used for this purpose – a core function within VipraOS that analyzes, structures and saves the incoming data and stores it in the right place within the virtual assistant’s database. At the same time the DATAdealer takes over a kind of guard function and protects the database against the input of faulty data or various attacks.
Once the data from the production is stored in the database of the virtual assistant, any skill of the virtual assistant system can access this data. These can be original Vipra skills, but they can also be third party skills or even self-developed skills. The access to the contents of the database is always done by the DATAdealer, which accepts the queries, checks them, guarantees the security and releases the data.
This ensures that the consistency of the data remains error-free at all times and that no unauthorized data access is made. At the same time, DATAdealer ensures that each skill gets exactly the information it needs and that incoming information is always stored in the right place within the system.
The virtual assistance system – Vipra can be accessed from any workstation PC, smartphone or tablet within the company network via the web browser of this device. Access is possible both via hard-wired (LAN) and wireless (WLAN) connections. It is also possible to enable remote system access (WAN) using various technologies (e.g. VPN, tunnel).
The user administration – a core function of VipraOS – allows the control of access authorizations so that only authorized users can realize access.
