On the reconfiguration of flexible manufacturing workcells

Most supervisors of discrete-event systems we designed before are inadaptable to reconfiguration due to the change of plant structures or the modification of specifications. However, in real manufacturing process, such reconfiguration is needed to make the discrete-event systems more intelligent. To improve the resilience and adaptability of discrete-event systems, this paper proposes a methodology for reconfiguration. The reconfiguration details are shown in the supervisory control of a flexible manufacturing workcell, including the reuse of the original supervisor and the seamless switch between the original supervisor and the reconfigured one. Being built in this way, the original system can work as usual before the new supervisor is computed and then makes a smooth switch to the corresponding state of the new supervisor without waiting for the old supervisor returning to its initial state.