Control system design for flexible manufacturing systems

Abstract

A modern systems theory point of view is offered for the design of sequencing controllersfor flexible manufacturing systems, whereby the controller is considered as separate from the workcell. An algorithm is given to design an intelligent rule-based controller with inner loops where no shared-resource conflict resolution is required, and outer loops that require extra control inputs to resolve conflict where needed. The controller design is based on standard manufacturing tools such as the BOM, task sequencing matrix, and resource requirements matrix; it is described by matrix equations over a nonstandard algebra. The equations of the closed-loop manufacturing system can be used to derive the Petri net or max/plus dioid description of the system for rigorous performance analysis. © 1995 Elsevier B.V.