An Approach for Synthesizing Energy-Efficient Controllers for Production Systems from Scenario-Based Specifications

Rising costs of energy production have made saving energy an important topic in many areas, including modern production systems. One idea is taking advantage of the braking energy becoming available when decelerating moving components of a machine. However, using the braking energy is a difficult task, as it requires the synchronization of the movement of different parts of a production system. Storing this energy often is not an economically viable solution. Optimizing the entire production process, in particular recognizing all optimization opportunities while still fulfilling all requirements, is a difficult and error-prone task. To support engineers in this task, we propose behavior modeling through scenario-based specifications, to be able to automatically generate all valid behavior strategies for the system, combined with energy usage modeling through state machines, to automatically identify the most energy-efficient strategy.