Empirical study of tabu search, simulated annealing and multi-start in fieldbus scheduling

The foundation fieldbus specification is a technology that allows to construct control strategies in terms of blocks diagrams, distributed among the field devices on the network. First, the control engineer defines the control strategy to be used and then it is done the allocation (in the different field devices on the network) of the function blocks used in the defined strategy. After these allocation it is necessary to do the scheduling of the function blocks to guarantee a correct order of execution and communication. This paper aims at evaluating the application of three metaheuristic methods for the resolution of the allocation and scheduling of function blocks problem in fieldbuses that follow the foundation fieldbus specification. The used methods are the multi-start, the simulated annealing and the tabu search