Distributed control for systems of concurrent production flow

Abstract A synchronization mechanism for periodic job shops with blocking where concurrent flows of AGVs have to compete safely (i.e. being starvation and deadlockfree) for access to shared system path sectors is investigated. A distributed AGVs control policy that restricts an AGV entering a path sector in an FMS is proposed. The conditions sufficient for design of a pair (priority dispatching rules, an initial processes allocation), which can be treated as a distributed control procedure, are presented. An illustrative example of AGVs distributed control prototyping is provided.