Using Petri net models at the coordination level for manufacturing systems control

Abstract This paper focuses on the coordination of manufacturing systems. A software architecture for manufacturing systems control is presented. The architecture follows a hierarchical approach for control, ranging from real-time coordination to long-term scheduling, where the different layers share a common knowledge base. A knowledge representation schema for manufacturing systems is proposed. This schema integrates knowledge representation techniques based on frames and high-level Petri nets to describe plant behaviour, and it follows an object-based methodology. The coordination function is materialized by making the coordination model evolve; this is done by a centralized, concurrent and interpreted implementation of the underlying Petri net.