Scheduling and discrete event control of flexible manufacturing systems based on Petri nets

A flexible manufacturing system (FMS) is a computerized production system that can simultaneously manufacture multiple types of products using various resources such as robots and multi-purpose machines. The central problems associated with design of flexible manufacturing systems are related to process planning, scheduling, coordination control, and monitoring. Many methods exist for scheduling and control of flexible manufacturing systems, although very few methods have addressed the complexity of whole FMS operations. This thesis presents a Petri net based method for deadlock-free scheduling and discrete event control of flexible manufacturing systems. A significant advantage of Petri net based methods is their powerful modeling capability. Petri nets can explicitly and concisely model the concurrent and asynchronous activities, multi-layer resource sharing, routing flexibility, limited buffers and precedence constraints in FMSs. Petri nets can also provide an explicit way for considering deadlock situations in FMSs, and thus facilitate significantly the design of a deadlock-free scheduling and control system. The contributions of this work are multifold. First, it develops a methodology for discrete event controller synthesis for flexible manufacturing systems in a timed Petri net framework. The resulting Petri nets have the desired qualitative properties of liveness, boundedness (safeness), and reversibility, which imply freedom from deadlock, no capacity overflow, and cyclic behavior, respectively. This precludes the costly mathematical analysis for these properties and reduces on-line computation overhead to avoid deadlocks. The performance and sensitivity of resulting Petri nets, thus corresponding control systems, are evaluated. Second, it introduces a hybrid heuristic search algorithm based on Petri nets for deadlock-free scheduling of flexible manufacturing systems. The issues such as deadlock, routing flexibility, multiple lot size, limited buffer size and material handling (loading/unloading) are explored. Third, it proposes a way to employ fuzzy dispatching rules in a Petri net framework for multi-criterion scheduling. Finally, it shows the effectiveness of the developed methods through several manufacturing system examples compared with benchmark dispatching rules, integer programming and Lagrangian relaxation approaches

Scheduling of flexible manufacturing systems with automated guided vehicles using petri net models

In this thesis, Petri net models for Flexible Manufacturing Systems (EMS) are constructed. A firing sequence of the Petri net from the initial marking to the final marking can be seen as a schedule of the modeled FMS. By using the branch-and-bound algorithm, an optimal schedule of the FMS can be obtained. Automated Guided Vehicle Systems (AGVS) are increasingly used for material handling in factories and warehouses. An AGVS can reduce labor costs and is ready to be integrated into an automated factory. This thesis presents two AGVS models (shared and duty) which integrate the control of AGVS with the control of part processing facilities. Both types of AGVS are modeled by Petri nets. We want to compare the two AGVS in terms of systems performance and discuss which application is more suitable for each AGVS type. We also want to consider and solve AGV jam problems. The objective of the AGV jam-free control module is to guarantee a jam-free condition among AGVs in an EMS. Results have been obtained and analyzed

Incremental Integer Linear Programming Models for Petri Nets Reachability Problems

http://www.intechopen.com/books/petri_net_theory_and_application

Optimization of deterministic timed weighted marked graphs

Timed marked graphs, a special class of Petri nets, are extensively used to model and analyze cyclic manufacturing systems. Weighted marked graphs are convenient to model systems with bulk services and arrivals. We consider two problems of practical importance for this class of nets. The marking optimization problem consists in finding an initial marking to minimize the weighted sum of tokens in places, while the average cycle time is less than or equal to a given value. The cycle time optimization problem consists in finding an initial marking to minimize the average cycle time, while the weighted sum of tokens in places is less than or equal to a given value. We propose two heuristic algorithms to solve these problems. Several simulation studies show that the proposed approach is significantly more efficient than existing ones

Max-plus algebra in the history of discrete event systems

This paper is a survey of the history of max-plus algebra and its role in the field of discrete event systems during the last three decades. It is based on the perspective of the authors but it covers a large variety of topics, where max-plus algebra plays a key role

Developing manufacturing control software: A survey and critique

The complexity and diversity of manufacturing software and the need to adapt this software to the frequent changes in the production requirements necessitate the use of a systematic approach to developing this software. The software life-cycle model (Royce, 1970) that consists of specifying the requirements of a software system, designing, implementing, testing, and evolving this software can be followed when developing large portions of manufacturing software. However, the presence of hardware devices in these systems and the high costs of acquiring and operating hardware devices further complicate the manufacturing software development process and require that the functionality of this software be extended to incorporate simulation and prototyping.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45542/1/10696_2005_Article_BF01328739.pd

Formal Verification of Real-time Systems with Preemptive Scheduling

International audienceIn this paper, we propose a method for the verification of timed properties for real-time systems featuring a preemptive scheduling policy: the system, modeled as a scheduling time Petri net, is first translated into a linear hybrid automaton to which it is time-bisimilar. Timed properties can then be verified using HyTech. The efficiency of this approach leans on two major points: first, the translation features a minimization of the number of variables (clocks) of the resulting automaton, which is a critical parameter for the efficiency of the ensuing verification. Second, the translation is performed by an over-approximating algorithm, which is based on Difference Bound Matrix and therefore efficient, that nonetheless produces a time-bisimilar automaton despite the over-approximation. The proposed modeling and verification method are generic enough to account for many scheduling policies. In this paper, we specifically show how to deal with Fixed Priority and Earliest Deadline First policies, with the possibility of using Round-Robin for tasks with the same priority. We have implemented the method and give some experimental results illustrating its efficiency

Ordonnancement cyclique robuste appliqué à la gestion des conteneurs dans les ports maritimes de taille moyenne

This PhD thesis is dedicated to propose a robust cyclic scheduling methodology applied to container management of medium sized seaport which faces ever changing terminal conditions and the limited predictability of future events and their timing. The robust cyclic scheduling can be seen not just a predictable scheduling to compute a container transportation schedule, but also a reactive scheduling to eliminate the disturbances in real time. In this work, the automated intelligent vehicles (AIV) are used to transport the containers, and the P-time strongly connected event graph (PTSCEG) is used as a graphical tool to model the container transit procedures. Before the arrival of the container vessel, a cyclic container transit schedule can be given by the mixed integer programming (MIP) method in short time. The robustness margins on the nodes of the system can be computed by robustness algorithms in polynomial computing time. After the stevedoring begins, this robust cyclic schedule is used. When a disturbance is observed in system, it should be compared with the known robustness margin. If the disturbance belongs to the robustness margin, the robustness algorithm is used to eliminate the disturbance in a few cycle times. If not, the MIP method is used to compute a new cyclic schedule in short timeCette thèse présente une méthodologie d’ordonnancement cyclique robuste appliquée à la gestion des conteneurs dans les ports maritimes de taille moyenne. Ces derniers sont sujet constamment à des variations des conditions des terminaux, la visibilité réduite sur des évènements futurs ne permet pas de proposer une planification précise des tâches à accomplir. L’ordonnancement cyclique robuste peut jouer un rôle primordial. Il permettra non seulement de proposer un ordonnancement prédictif pour le transport des conteneurs, mais aussi, il proposera également une planification robuste permettant d’éliminer les perturbations éventuelles en temps réel. Dans ce travail nous utilisons les Véhicules Intelligents Automatisés (AIV) pour transporter les conteneurs et nous modélisons les procédures de transit de ces derniers par des graphes d’évènements P-temporels fortement connexes (PTSCEG). Avant l’arrivée d’un porte conteneur au port, un plan (planning) de transport des conteneurs est proposé en un temps court par la programmation linéaire mixte (MIP). Des algorithmes polynomiaux de calcul de robustesse permettent de calculer sur les différents nœuds du système les marges de robustesse. Une fois le navire à quai, l’ordonnancement cyclique robuste est appliqué. Lorsqu’une perturbation est observée (localisée) dans le système, une comparaison avec la marge de robustesse connue est effectuée. Si cette perturbation est incluse dans la marge de robustesse, l’algorithme robuste est utilisé pour éliminer ces perturbations en quelques cycles. Dans le cas où la perturbation est trop importante, la méthode MIP est utilisée pour calculer un nouvel ordonnancement cyclique en un temps rédui