The planning coordinator: A design architecture for autonomous error recovery and on-line planning of intelligent tasks

Developing a robust, task level, error recovery and on-line planning architecture is an open research area. There is previously published work on both error recovery and on-line planning; however, none incorporates error recovery and on-line planning into one integrated platform. The integration of these two functionalities requires an architecture that possesses the following characteristics. The architecture must provide for the inclusion of new information without the destruction of existing information. The architecture must provide for the relating of pieces of information, old and new, to one another in a non-trivial rather than trivial manner (e.g., object one is related to object two under the following constraints, versus, yes, they are related; no, they are not related). Finally, the architecture must be not only a stand alone architecture, but also one that can be easily integrated as a supplement to some existing architecture. This thesis proposal addresses architectural development. Its intent is to integrate error recovery and on-line planning onto a single, integrated, multi-processor platform. This intelligent x-autonomous platform, called the Planning Coordinator, will be used initially to supplement existing x-autonomous systems and eventually replace them

A proposal of an architecture for the coordination level of intelligent machines

The issue of obtaining a practical, structured, and detailed description of an architecture for the Coordination Level of Center for Intelligent Robotic Systems for Sapce Exploration (CIRSSE) Testbed Intelligent Controller is addressed. Previous theoretical and implementation works were the departure point for the discussion. The document is organized as follows: after this introductory section, section 2 summarizes the overall view of the Intelligent Machine (IM) as a control system, proposing a performance measure on which to base its design. Section 3 addresses with some detail implementation issues. An hierarchic petri-net with feedback-based learning capabilities is proposed. Finally, section 4 is an attempt to address the feedback problem. Feedback is used for two functions: error recovery and reinforcement learning of the correct translations for the petri-net transitions

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

An agile and adaptive holonic architecture for manufacturing control

Tese de doutoramento. Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores. 2004. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Port

Modeling, design and scheduling of computer integrated manufacturing and demanufacturing systems

This doctoral dissertation work aims to provide a discrete-event system-based methodology for design, implementation, and operation of flexible and agile manufacturing and demanufacturing systems. After a review of the current academic and industrial activities in these fields, a Virtual Production Lines (VPLs) design methodology is proposed to facilitate a Manufacturing Execution System integrated with a shop floor system. A case study on a back-end semiconductor line is performed to demonstrate that the proposed methodology is effective to increase system throughput and decrease tardiness. An adaptive algorithm is proposed to deal with the machine failure and maintenance. To minimize the environmental impacts caused by end-of-life or faulty products, this research addresses the fundamental design and implementation issues of an integrated flexible demanufacturing system (IFDS). In virtue of the success of the VPL design and differences between disassembly and assembly, a systematic approach is developed for disassembly line design. This thesis presents a novel disassembly planning and demanufacturing scheduling method for such a system. Case studies on the disassembly of personal computers are performed illustrating how the proposed approaches work

A petri-net based methodology for modeling, simulation, and control of flexible manufacturing systems

Global competition has made it necessary for manufacturers to introduce such advanced technologies as flexible and agile manufacturing, intelligent automation, and computer-integrated manufacturing. However, the application extent of these technologies varies from industry to industry and has met various degrees of success. One critical barrier leading to successful implementation of advanced manufacturing systems is the ever-increasing complexity in their modeling, analysis, simulation, and control. The purpose of this work is to introduce a set of Petri net-based tools and methods to address a variety of problems associated with the design and implementation of flexible manufacturing systems (FMSs). More specifically, this work proposes Petri nets as an integrated tool for modeling, simulation, and control of flexible manufacturing systems (FMSs). The contributions of this work are multifold. First, it demonstrates a new application of PNs for simulation by evaluating the performance of pull and push diagrams in manufacturing systems. Second, it introduces a class of PNs, Augmented-timed Petri nets (ATPNs) in order to increase the power of PNs to simulate and control flexible systems with breakdowns. Third, it proposes a new class of PNs called Realtime Petri nets (RTPNs) for discrete event control of FMS s. The detailed comparison between RTPNs and traditional discrete event methods such as ladder logic diagrams is presented to answer the basic question \u27Why is a PN better tool than ladder logic diagram?\u27 and to justify the PN method. Also, a conversion procedure that automatically generates PN models from a given class of logic control specifications is presented. Finally, a methodology that uses PNs for the development of object-oriented control software is proposed. The present work extends the PN state-of-the-art in two ways. First, it offers a wide scope for engineers and managers who are responsible for the design and the implementation of modem manufacturing systems to evaluate Petri nets for applications in their work. Second, it further develops Petri net-based methods for discrete event control of manufacturing systems

An overview of decision table literature 1982-1995.

This report gives an overview of the literature on decision tables over the past 15 years. As much as possible, for each reference, an author supplied abstract, a number of keywords and a classification are provided. In some cases own comments are added. The purpose of these comments is to show where, how and why decision tables are used. The literature is classified according to application area, theoretical versus practical character, year of publication, country or origin (not necessarily country of publication) and the language of the document. After a description of the scope of the interview, classification results and the classification by topic are presented. The main body of the paper is the ordered list of publications with abstract, classification and comments.