Intelligent material flow by decentralizedcontrol networks

Abstract

This contribution presents a modular system for decentralized control of track-bound plant-floor material flow. The first main element of the system is a transport network of intelligent track and transport modules that autonomously execute transport orders. There is only a limited number of different standard module types, initially not bound to a specific topology. All modules can independently perform local operations and, in order to coordinate their actions, communicate throughout the network via an integrated data bus. The second pillar is a PC-based graphical user interface for automatically configuring modules with topology data, for passing transport orders to transport modules, and for optionally supervising all concurrent processes.