Expert-system approach for the control and scheduling of flexible manufacturing cells

Thesis/Dissertation · Thu Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1987

OSTI ID:6963868

Wu, S Y.D.

Today, most expert systems contain a substantial amount of domain expertise (i.e., knowledge) organized for efficient problem solving. However, most of the existing design philosophies for expert systems do not lend themselves to real-time control environments. Expert systems are currently being touted as a means of resolving factory scheduling problems. Unfortunately, the expert systems developed to date are neither generic nor responsive enough to be used for on-line system control. In this research, an architecture is created that takes advantage of both expert-system technology and discrete-event simulation. The simulation is used as a prediction mechanism to evaluate several possible control alternatives provided by the expert system. A performance measure is obtained from the simulation for each of the suggested alternatives. The integration of the expert control system, the simulation, and the control effectors, form a system called MPECS. MPECS is used to control Flexible Manufacturing Cells (FMC). Specific software and algorithms are developed to define and implement the system. The control architecture is examined using the information from an existing FMC to demonstrate its feasibility.

• Research Organization: Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park (USA)
• OSTI ID: 6963868
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

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99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
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COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE
COMPUTERIZED CONTROL SYSTEMS
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
CONTROL SYSTEMS
EXPERT SYSTEMS
KNOWLEDGE BASE
MANUFACTURING
REAL TIME SYSTEMS
SIMULATION