Manufacturing Systems Control Design (eBook)

This book covers all the steps from identification of operations and resources to the transformation of virtual models into real-world algorithms. The matrix-based approach presented here is a solution to the real-time application of control in discrete event systems and flexible manufacturing systems (FMS), and offers a sound practical basis for the design of controllers for manufacturing systems.

The authors of this project are or have been associated with Frank Lewis's research group in Texas, Frank Lewis himself is very well-known in the control community having served as Editor for Automatica and as a conference organizer for IEEE (for example, he was General Chair of CDC 2003), of which he is a fellow. All the authors have experience in both the industrial and academic spheres including work on various forms of control, robotics, MEMS and network installation. Frank Lewis has extensive experience of writing books (11 books still in print including 6 authored monographs/textbooks). He has edited a previous Springer volume Adaptive Control of Nonsmooth Dynamic Systems 1-85233-384-7. Professor Kovacic and Doctor Bogdan are also involved in IEE conference organisationand in addition to their American connections are in close collaboration with the highly-regarded Technical University of Crete.

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The series Advances in Industrial Control aims to report and encourage technology transfer in control engineering. The rapid development of control technology has an impact on all areas of the control discipline. New theory, new controllers, actuators, sensors, new industrial processes, computer methods, new applications, new philosophies , new challenges. Much of this development work resides in industrial reports, feasibility study papers and the reports of advanced collaborative projects. The series offers an opportunity for researchers to present an extended exposition of such new work in all aspects of industrial control for wider and rapid dissemination. In some areas of manufacturing, the elements of a flexible manufacturing system form the key components of the process line. These key components are four-fold: a set of programmable robots and machines, an automated materia- handling system that allows parts to be freely routed and re-routed, a buffer storage system where parts and partly-assembled components can wait until required for further processing and assembly and finally, a supervisory control system. The technology employed to coordinate and control all these components as a working system is usually based on programmable logic controllers. The use of this automation hardware and software in manufacturing is designed to yield significant cost reductions and to enhance quality.