Addressing design and control issues of AGV-based FMSs with Petri net aided simulation

Automated Guided Vehicle Systems (AGVS) are widely used in Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS) as they provide modularity and flexibility. These systems are highly complex and expensive, hence careful design and operational planning are essential. Realizing the limitations of the available analytical and simulation methods, this paper proposes extensions to the Timed Petri nets method, and presents an hierarchical modelling and simulation methodology. It addresses design and control issues such as the number of vehicles required, machine scheduling, AGV dispatching, etc., of an AGV-based FMS. © 1993.