Moore automata for flexible routing and flow control in manufacturing workcells

The potential of flexible-manufacturing workcells (FMCs) to produce a family of parts in many possible orders of operations and choices of different machines is advantageous. Despite intensive research on the theoretical control of discrete-event systems, however, current techniques can still only be used for the supervisory control of simple cells. In this article, a novel modeling and control synthesis technique is presented for FMCs that allow part-routing flexibility. Our proposed methodology combines extended Moore automata and controlled-automata theories to synthesize supervisors for such FMCs