Modeling and Supervisory Control of Dynamic Material Handling Systems

Material handling systems (MHS) play an important role in almost every industrial system. An MHS consists of a set of transportation devices and storage buffers, which are used to transfer different materials from one location to another. Considering the sheer size of an MHS and the corresponding total number of materials being handled, it is a daunting challenge to model an MHS and optimize its performance in a dynamic environment. In this paper we introduce a new modeling formalism in which components are modeled as state-labeled finite-state automata, requirements are modeled as requirement automata. By introducing new synchronous product maps we show how to compose components together to form a system model and how to impose requirements on it. After bringing in the concept of closed and marked behaviors we show how to use this new formalism for supervisory control and performance optimization within a dynamic environment.