Synthesising process controllers from formal models of transformable assembly systems. (August 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: de Silva, Lavindra; Felli, Paolo; Sanderson, David; Chaplin, Jack C.; Logan, Brian; Ratchev, Svetan
• Is Part Of: Robotics and computer-integrated manufacturing. Volume 58(2019)
• Page Start: 130
• Page End: 144
• Publication Date: 2019-08
• Subjects: Evolvable assembly systems -- Controller synthesis -- Standardisation; Robots, Industrial -- Periodicals; Computer integrated manufacturing systems -- Periodicals; Robotics -- Periodicals; Robots industriels -- Périodiques; Productique -- Périodiques; Robotique -- Périodiques; 670.285
• DOI: 10.1016/j.rcim.2019.01.014
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0736-5845

Abstract

Highlights: Methods exist for checking whether and how a particular product can be manufactured. These methods are now presented in detail to allow their reimplementation by others. An additional method is given for generating the 'topology' of a production system. Topology generation is scalable for realistically-sized manufacturing facilities. Product recipes and resources are used to synthesise process controllers in B2MML. Abstract: When producing complex and highly customisable products in low volumes (or in 'batch sizes of one'), automation of production systems is critical for competitiveness and profitability in high labour-cost economies. To facilitate batch-size-of-one production, 'topology generation', 'realisability', and 'control' algorithms have been developed as part of the Evolvable Assembly Systems (EAS) project. The topology generation algorithm computes all the possible sequences of parallel activities that assembly resources can perform on parts and is run offline whenever the layout of the production facility changes, whereas realisability checking and controller generation are performed at run-time to check whether a production facility with a given set of assembly resources can assemble a desired product, and how the product should be assembled, e.g., which resources to use, and when. Generated controllers are output in Business to Manufacturing Markup Language (B2MML). Taken together, the algorithms thus represent a step toward a complete path from the formal specification of an assembly system and the products to be assembled, to the automated synthesis of executable process plans. This paper presents each algorithm in sufficient detail to allow their reimplementation by other researchers. Topology generation is the most expensive step in the approach. A preliminary experimental evaluation of the scalability of topology generation is presented, which suggests that, for small to medium sized production facilities, the time required for recomputing the topology is sufficiently small not to preclude frequent factory transformations, e.g., the addition of new resources.