A Petri net based approach to modeling and scheduling for an FMS and a case study

In this paper, a timed-place Petri net (TPPN) model for flexible manufacturing systems (FMSs) is constructed, which contains two major submodels: the stationary transportation model; and the variable process flow model. For multiple automated guided vehicle (AGV) systems, the authors embed a simple rule and introduce a push-AGV strategy in a TPPN model to solve the collision and traffic jam problems of such vehicles. Since a firing sequence of the TPPN from the initial marking to the final marking can be seen as a schedule of the modeled FMS, by using an A/sup */ based search algorithm, namely, the limited-expansion A algorithm, an effective schedule of the part processing can be obtained. To show the promising potential of the proposed work, a prototype FMS is used as a target system for implementation. The experiment results assert that the job-shop scheduling problem can always be satisfactorily solved.>