Preview control of flexible manufacturing systems

This paper proposes feedback control algorithms suitable for the top level of a hierarchical approach to controlling Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS). Preview and state feedback control techniques are employed to regulate the inventory levels near zero. The resulting controller utilizes inventory state feedback and anticipatory demand feedforward control, referred to as preview control. The preview control takes on the form of demand filtering. Special dynamic properties of the demand filter are discussed. We show how future demand information is related to present production and inventory levels. Production constraints are explicitly handled in the development of the feedback controller. We present numerical results for a test case.