Research on Control System/IT Design Issues

This research will provide methods that allow engineers to test and validate data acquisition and supervisory control programs during the design phase of the manufacturing plant. A supervisory control module will be developed based on finite automata theory. It will be interfaced with simulation software that can be used for modeling the manufacturing plant. Control methods will address normative plant behavior as well as adaptation to unanticipated events in the plant, such as machine breakdowns and the failure of sensors and other data acquisition systems. Methods will be developed for re-configurable modes of operation within control specifications during periods when components of the plant and/or data acquisition system have failed. Experiments using the prototype supervisory control module in conjunction with the plant simulation module will be run to demonstrate that various control strategies can be validated for both their control logic and the resulting performance of the controlled manufacturing system.

If successful, the results of this research could be used to build a new design tool for engineers. Currently, in discrete parts manufacturing, the simulation of manufacturing system designs do not incorporate models of the electronic control systems and data collection devices that will eventually drive the operation of the factory that the simulation is modeling. The primary goal of this work is to incorporate these design details into the early stages of plant design, when engineers are evaluating alternative factory designs through computer simulation. Successfully meeting the objectives of this research can reduce the cost of new plant development by reducing the lead time for manufacturing system design and test, and by validating the control programs and resulting plant performance before the construction and start up phase of the new plant.