Generation of optimum schedules in multi-robot workcells with high processing flexibility

A truncation technique has been presented to reduce the computational complexity of optimal scheduling in the context of timed Petri nets. A number of problems associated with the Petri net truncation technique remain unsolved. This work concentrates on the issue of how the global criteria function (viz. the minimum time makespan) may be incorporated in the subnet-wide search, so that merging the sub-schedules would yield an overall optimum schedule. A new and comprehensive algorithm is developed for the subnet-wide search, and is tested by two scheduling examples