Optimization of production in an autonomous robot served manufacturing facility

This paper introduces an approach for optimizing the production in a manufacturing facility where the work pieces are carried by autonomous robots. For this purpose the process in the facility is modeled as a UML (Unified Modeling Language) activity diagram. Thereafter all of the system properties and parameters are added to the model via standard stereotypes and tagged values specified in the MARTE (Modeling and Analysis of Real-time and Embedded Systems) profile. This annotated UML model can be automatically transformed to a corresponding Generalized Net - a summarizing concept of many high-level Petri nets modifications. By accomplishment of simulation experiments with different input parameters the production process can be analyzed and diverse execution scenarios can be compared. In this way an optimal organization in the manufacturing facility can be chosen. This helps in consequence increasing the effectiveness in the facility and reducing the production costs.