Synthesising process controllers from formal models of transformable assembly systems
When producing complex and highly customisable products in low volumes (or in ‘batch sizes of one’), automation of production systems is critical for competitiveness and profitability in high labour-cost economies. To facilitate batch-size-of-one production, ‘topology generation’, ‘realisability’, an...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Elsevier
2019
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/55973/ |
| _version_ | 1848799249126391808 |
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| author | de Silva, Lavindra Felli, Paolo Sanderson, David Chaplin, Jack C. Logan, Brian Ratchev, Svetan |
| author_facet | de Silva, Lavindra Felli, Paolo Sanderson, David Chaplin, Jack C. Logan, Brian Ratchev, Svetan |
| author_sort | de Silva, Lavindra |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | When producing complex and highly customisable products in low volumes (or in ‘batch sizes of one’), automation of production systems is critical for competitiveness and profitability in high labour-cost economies. To facilitate batch-size-of-one production, ‘topology generation’, ‘realisability’, and ‘control’ algorithms have been developed as part of the Evolvable Assembly Systems (EAS) project. The topology generation algorithm computes all the possible sequences of parallel activities that assembly resources can perform on parts and is run offline whenever the layout of the production facility changes, whereas realisability checking and controller generation are performed at run-time to check whether a production facility with a given set of assembly resources can assemble a desired product, and how the product should be assembled, e.g., which resources to use, and when. Generated controllers are output in Business to Manufacturing Markup Language (B2MML). Taken together, the algorithms thus represent a step toward a complete path from the formal specification of an assembly system and the products to be assembled, to the automated synthesis of executable process plans. This paper presents each algorithm in sufficient detail to allow their reimplementation by other researchers. Topology generation is the most expensive step in the approach. A preliminary experimental evaluation of the scalability of topology generation is presented, which suggests that, for small to medium sized production facilities, the time required for recomputing the topology is sufficiently small not to preclude frequent factory transformations, e.g., the addition of new resources. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:32:40Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-55973 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:32:40Z |
| publishDate | 2019 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-559732019-01-25T09:21:28Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/55973/ Synthesising process controllers from formal models of transformable assembly systems de Silva, Lavindra Felli, Paolo Sanderson, David Chaplin, Jack C. Logan, Brian Ratchev, Svetan When producing complex and highly customisable products in low volumes (or in ‘batch sizes of one’), automation of production systems is critical for competitiveness and profitability in high labour-cost economies. To facilitate batch-size-of-one production, ‘topology generation’, ‘realisability’, and ‘control’ algorithms have been developed as part of the Evolvable Assembly Systems (EAS) project. The topology generation algorithm computes all the possible sequences of parallel activities that assembly resources can perform on parts and is run offline whenever the layout of the production facility changes, whereas realisability checking and controller generation are performed at run-time to check whether a production facility with a given set of assembly resources can assemble a desired product, and how the product should be assembled, e.g., which resources to use, and when. Generated controllers are output in Business to Manufacturing Markup Language (B2MML). Taken together, the algorithms thus represent a step toward a complete path from the formal specification of an assembly system and the products to be assembled, to the automated synthesis of executable process plans. This paper presents each algorithm in sufficient detail to allow their reimplementation by other researchers. Topology generation is the most expensive step in the approach. A preliminary experimental evaluation of the scalability of topology generation is presented, which suggests that, for small to medium sized production facilities, the time required for recomputing the topology is sufficiently small not to preclude frequent factory transformations, e.g., the addition of new resources. Elsevier 2019-01-17 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en cc_by_nc_nd https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/55973/1/deSilva-RCIM.pdf de Silva, Lavindra, Felli, Paolo, Sanderson, David, Chaplin, Jack C., Logan, Brian and Ratchev, Svetan (2019) Synthesising process controllers from formal models of transformable assembly systems. Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing . ISSN 1879-2537 (In Press) Evolvable Assembly Systems; Controller Synthesis; Standardisation |
| spellingShingle | Evolvable Assembly Systems; Controller Synthesis; Standardisation de Silva, Lavindra Felli, Paolo Sanderson, David Chaplin, Jack C. Logan, Brian Ratchev, Svetan Synthesising process controllers from formal models of transformable assembly systems |
| title | Synthesising process controllers from formal models of transformable assembly systems |
| title_full | Synthesising process controllers from formal models of transformable assembly systems |
| title_fullStr | Synthesising process controllers from formal models of transformable assembly systems |
| title_full_unstemmed | Synthesising process controllers from formal models of transformable assembly systems |
| title_short | Synthesising process controllers from formal models of transformable assembly systems |
| title_sort | synthesising process controllers from formal models of transformable assembly systems |
| topic | Evolvable Assembly Systems; Controller Synthesis; Standardisation |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/55973/ |