NimbleNet: Serverless Computing for the Extreme Edge in Factory Environments

Modern factories are moving towards modular layouts with more generic production cells, allowing rapid production customization. Here, the cell's edge nodes exhibit considerable heterogeneity, ranging from simple microcontrollers to fully-fledged computing systems, which mandates that assembly-specific serverless functions used by Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) navigating through and linking the production cells are platform-independent. These moving manufacturing processes call for an adapted communication and distribution infrastructure to maintain low response times while minimizing network traffic.