A comparative experiment of control architectures

This paper presents the results of two research projects in the CIM laboratory of the Cooperative Engineering Centre (CEC) in Amsterdam. The two projects involve the design and implementation of control systems for shop floor control. Two different designs for shop floor control systems are implemented in a scale model factory for PCB assembly and test. The first system is based on a distributed control architecture, and the second system is based on a hierarchical control architecture. This paper discusses the differences between the architectures and implementations of the two control systems. The benefits and disadvantages of different architectures and implementations are discussed in terms of functionality, performance, maintenance, software reuse and required infrastructure.