The control of firmly chained conveyor systems by decentralized intelligences

摘要

Pennanently chained conveyor systems are material flow systems which often lie far apart The single components are directly controlled by central stored program controls where all components are controlled from a central point. In this paper the disadvantages of such a control are pointed out. As an alternative a decentralized control on the basis of distributed intelligences is presented. According to this concept every component of the conveyor system is controlled by an (also physical) autonomous brick. Each of this control bricks is exclusively reponsible for the control of "its" brick. Tasks which concern several bricks are handled in a central "brick". The main subject of this paper are the requirements on the communication system and an innovative way to generate software.