A matrix approach to an FMS control design [flexible manufacturing systems]

This article presents advantages of using new technologies and design methods for control of flexible manufacturing systems (FMS). For this purpose, a matrix-based description of FMS operations is adopted, as it generates the form of the FMS supervisory controller that is directly convertible into the programmable logic controller (PLC) program. An accent is given to the program tool FlexMan which enables elegant setting of complex FMS configurations by using virtual reality models and a matching matrix-based dynamic simulator. We demonstrate how this tool has been used for design, dynamic simulation, and visualization of a two-robot, material handling cell. It is shown how phenomena like operation conflicts and deadlocks can be observed and analyzed within a virtual reality environment before switching to the real world application. A comparison of results indicates large match-ups of phenomena in both environments.