Two-stage method for synthesizing liveness-enforcing supervisors for flexible manufacturing systems using Petri nets

This paper develops a two-stage approach to synthesizing liveness-enforcing supervisors for flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) that can be modeled by a class of Petri nets. First, we find siphons that need to be controlled using a mixed integer programming (MIP) method. This way avoids complete siphon enumeration that is more time-consuming for a sizable plant model than the MIP method. Monitors are added for only those siphons that require them. Second, we rearrange the output arcs of the monitors on condition that liveness is still preserved. The liveness is verified by an MIP-based deadlock detection method instead of much time-consuming reachability analysis. Experimental studies show that the proposed approach is more efficient than the existing ones and can result in more permissive and structurally simpler liveness-enforcing supervisors than all the known existing methods. This paper makes the application of siphon-based deadlock control methods to industrial-size FMS possible.