Scheduling and control of mixed batch/continuous processes based on general hybrid Petri net

The scheduling and control of mixed batch/continuous process plants is difficult since the model and solution have to deal with both discrete and continuous operations. Motivated by the need for the effective scheduling and control of operations in complex sugar milling system, a new type of hybrid Petri nets called general hybrid Petri nets (GHPNs) is proposed, which allows the formulation of variable cycle time, deterministic timed delay, exponentially distributed timed delay and flow rate in a complex mixed batch/continuous process. Through analysis of GHPNs models, the feasible scheduling and operations for a complex mixed batch/continuous process can be found efficiently. In addition, illustrative examples are presented.