## 2 The Model and Architecture of the Remote Prototyping System
It is important that the adopted model is complementary to it. As a result, the management and design-creation relationships will be consistent with each other, which will contribute to their proper performance. Up until now, this process was usually carried out within one company. The selected elements of the process were, of course, implemented in another institution, but independently and were not connected with each other using a coherent hardware and software infrastructure. It should be stressed that each of the components of the whole process plays an important role in it. Therefore, the aim of developing a proper system architecture supporting the process of rapid prototyping in a distributed environment, while providing remote access to resources, shall take into account the modern, convergent ICT infrastructure in the form of, among others, a high-performance computer network. The principles presented above, resulting from the adopted model and the defined process of rapid prototyping, constituted the basis for the development of the target system architecture, which is presented in Figure 4.  
The presented architecture is based on the possibility of remote prototyping. Thus, the main assumption was the ability to remotely share resources located in different places. These resources can include both the environment for teamwork, exchange of ideas and creation of design assumptions, but also the environment of specialized and dedicated software used at the different stages of prototyping, as well as individual devices and entire machine parks. This architecture's core is based on a proprietary software model based on cloud computing with fog computing elements [47]. This solution focuses on key functionality including two basic layers: _the analytical layer_ and _the network services layer_. In the case of the first one, the implementation of expert systems [48], artificial intelligence and machine learning mechanisms [49, 50, 51, 52], as well as own knowledge bases is assumed. These solutions support the decision-making processes [53]. It is also assumed that experts can actively participate in them. The second, equally important, layer consists of ICT systems and software such as: CAD applications, resource virtualization systems, access control systems, planning and tariffication systems, etc. Operation of this architecture would not be possible without the _communication layer_, based on an efficient network infrastructure, as well as the layer of _ICT equipment_ such as: servers, disk arrays, etc. Figure 3: Diagram of the rapid prototyping process [12]. Under the proposed model, autonomous areas containing remote resources of customers or end partners have been designated. It is the owner of the \"Remote Resources\" cloud (RR) who sets the rules for making its resources available, creates an access interface to them and ensures their security. Many companies have well-proven methods and systems to form and work with their resources. The only thing they usually have to do is to prepare a manual describing the rules of using their resources. Essentially, during the integration of manufacturing resources in the proposed model, we have established three architectures for sharing resources by companies:  
1. Providing real-time access to the device by offering access to software that directly controls the device. For this task, Remote Desktop connections were used on a computer connected directly to the machine. Another way of achieving it was to create ad hoc virtual machines with a specific set of control software or tools on the machine which, using specialized cards, was connected to many production machines. 2. Providing specialized production and laboratory resources on a pseudo-batch processing basis. In the central cloud a task dedicated to a specific RR cloud was harmonized, allowing the employee's time as well as machines to be booked for a given task at a given time.