Synthesis of distributed forcing/locking safety controllers

This contribution presents an approach for synthesis of distributed controllers on the shop-floor level. These controllers communicate with each other and control the plant by enabling/disabling events in the plant as well as by forcing them to occur. The major advantage is that such controllers ensure a richer admissible plant behavior than controllers that would only enable/disable plant events. The synthesis approach is based on modular plant models and specifications of forbidden states. It is demonstrated using a laboratory-scale manufacturing system example.