Heterarchical production control in manufacturing systems using the potential fields concept

This article deals with the potential field concept and its application to dynamic task allocation and dynamic routing controls of flexible manufacturing systems (FMS). This potential field approach requires increasing the interaction capabilities of the different entities, not only resources but also products themselves. In this approach, products request services from resources, sensing the fields emitted by resources and selecting the field that best satisfies the service request. Many already published approaches that are capable of modelling systems based on the interactions between the entities in manufacturing systems are presented. Then, the potential field concept and its application to FMS control are explained in detail. Next, a potential field model and its application are proposed in the real-time heterarchical control of dynamic resource allocation and dynamic product routing. Using a NetLogo simulation, the potential field model supports hard assumptions, such as dynamic transportation times, limited storage capacities and breakdown events. To validate this model, an ongoing real implementation is presented with the AIP-PRIMECA FMS.