Planning-based visual programming system for sequence control

The paper presents a planning based visual programming system for sequence control program specification design (VIPS/S-SFCD). VIPS/S-SFCD features an example based programming technique in which designers specify the initial states and goal states of machines using visual representations, and a planning method that infers machine actions and generates the control program specifications. This method is based on the state space model and has the scope to make the searches on the model efficient. We used the planner of VIPS/S-SFCD to experimentally generate control program specifications for actually existing steel plants. The experimental results showed that the quality of control program specifications generated by VIPS/S-SFCD was the same as the ones generated by a design specialist, and the time required for designing control programs was much shorter. According to our experiments, VLPS/S-SFCD can reduce the design time of control programs to 1/3