An anti-windup based approach to the control of manufacturing systems

This paper focusses on the problem of controlling the production rate of a discrete-event manufacturing system such that the total production meets a certain reference demand. There is a need for a simple and structured approach to design controllers for manufacturing systems. Therefore, we choose for a continuous approximation model of a manufacturing machine, which is controlled using a PI controller with anti-windup. Convergent systems theory and a nonlinear extension of frequency response functions are used to evaluate the performance of this continuous approximation model with the proposed controller. Next, the controller is implemented on the discrete-event system and performance is evaluated using discrete-event simulations. Simulation results of the manufacturing system with an anti-windup controller agree with the observations that were made during the frequency domain performance analysis of the continuous approximation.