Decision-making method of reconfigurable manufacturing system's reconfiguration timing based on catastrophe theory

For the problem how to make the decision of RMS's reconfiguration timing, a decision-making method based on information entropy and cusp catastrophe theory is proposed. The information entropy was used to characterize the complexity of RMS, including the factors of machine states, part states and so on. The RMS passive and positive information entropies were used as control variables of cusp catastrophe. According to the cusp catastrophe mutation determination condition, the RMS mutation point was decided, which was the RMS's reconfiguration time. A case study validated the effectiveness and practicability of the method proposed, which guided the launch of RMS reconfiguration in time and improve the response ability of RMS.