AN EXPERT SYSTEM APPROACH FOR THE CONTROL AND SCHEDULING OF FLEXIBLE MANUFACTURING CELLS (ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, ROBOTICS)

An expert system is a computer program that uses knowledge and inference procedures to solve problems. Today, most expert systems contain a substantial amount of domain expertise (i.e., knowledge) organized for efficient problem solving. However, most of the existing design philosophies for expert systems do not lend themselves to real-time control environments. Expert systems are currently being touted as a means of resolving factory scheduling problems. Unfortunately, the expert systems developed to date are neither generic nor responsive enough to be used for on-line system control.;Specific software and algorithms are developed to define and implement the system. The control architecture is examined using the information from an existing FMC to demonstrate its feasibility.;In this research, an architecture is created which takes advantage of both expert system technology and discrete event simulation. The simulation is used as a prediction mechanism to evaluate several possible control alternatives provided by the expert system. A performance measure is obtained from the simulation for each of the suggested alternatives. A control effector is then employed to affect the physical control of the cell based on the performance measure. This performance measure is worth a great deal of domain-specific knowledge that would otherwise have to be included in the expert knowledge base. The integration of the expert control system, the simulation, and the control effectors, form a system called MPECS. MPECS is used to control Flexible Manufacturing Cells (FMC).