On Multi-Step Look-Ahead Deadlock Prediction for Automated Manufacturing Systems Based on Petri Nets

Automated manufacturing systems (AMSs) are prone to be in deadlock states when resource allocation is unreasonable. Reasonably allocating system resources to achieve deadlock control is a primary task of the design of an AMS. This paper proposes a multi-step look-ahead deadlock prediction method to obtain an optimal deadlock avoidance policy for a class Petri nets, without calculating a complete reachability graph. As the reachability graph of a large-scale Petri net model is usually large, the analysis and calculation process to obtain the optimal deadlock avoidance policy is complicated. We first simplify a Petri net model by using the existing Petri net reduction methods or removing non-shared resources to simplify the model structure. Then we calculate the dead zone markings of the simplified model through a reverse generation method, and finally develop a multi-step look-ahead deadlock prediction method to obtain an optimal deadlock avoidance policy for a class of AMSs.