A Real-time Scheduling Method for Flexible ManufacturingSystems Using Hardware-based Simulation

摘要

In this paper the effort to explore a real-time scheduling framework through hardware-based simulation on a multimicroprocessorbased simulator is introduced. The simulator, which is built specifically for simulation and control offlexible manufacturing systems (FMS), is a digital circuit board composed of a collection of multi-microprocessors.The FMS simulation model is decomposed into a cluster of "micro emulators" on the board where each workstationis represented by one micro emulator. The typical weighted tardiness scheduling problem is studied, including thesituation of machine breakdown. The central theme to realize a real-time scheduling is to generate a schedule withthe feedback information from hardware-based simulation. Simulation results are also used as measurement tosearch for the most desirable alternative in an iterative search mechanism. Preliminary work shows that thesimulator is able to capture the running status of the systems and generate accurate simulation results in real-timewithin a laboratory environment.