A kind of deadlock-free scheduling method based on Petri net

In this paper an efficient algorithm for finding an optimal deadlock-free schedules in a flexible manufacturing system (FMS) modeled by a kind of Petri net, systems of simple sequential processes with shared resources (S/sup 4/R) nets, is presented. This algorithm is based on the effective genetic algorithm (GA) search method, and the structural elements analysis of Petri net. In order to find the optimum and deadlock-free scheduling strategy from the population generated by GA, Petri net structural analysis procedure is involved as a criterion to select among population and make the job scheduling deadlock-free. The effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed approach is illustrated using an example at the end of the paper.