Model-based control of flexible assembly systems using colored Petri net

This paper suggests an intuitive and systematic approach for modelling the operation of flexible assembly systems (FAS). Three types of basic manufacturing entities, namely, workagent, task and material are viewed as hierarchies. Colored Petri net (CPN) is used for system modelling. In this approach, elementary color sets are defined over the manufacturing entities and their product sets form the color set for places in CPN models. Production information and constraints are represented by guard functions, and they are expression functions. For illustration purpose, a workstation modelling example is presented in the end.