Supervisory control for reconfigurable manufacturing systems: Structural changes and re-usability of controllers

This thesis deals with reconfigurable manufacturing systems (RMS) and reconfigurable machine tools (RMT), that are designed to provide flexibility in both the variety of products and the configuration of the manufacturing system itself in order to quickly adjust to new products and production. In particular, the thesis investigates the aspect of reconfigurable manufacturing systems to change their structure during run-time. To this end, methods for the synthesis of controllers that support structural changes of the RMS are developed. In addition, the topic of re-usability of previously designed controllers is addressed. The methods are applied to a laboratory model of an RMS.Keywords: Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems, Reconfigurable Machine Tools, Discrete Event Systems, Controller Design, Structural Changes, Re-usability