Browsing by Author "Kotze, Marcus J."
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- ItemModular control of a reconfigurable conveyor system(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2016-12) Kotze, Marcus J.; Basson, A. H.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Engineering. Dept. of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis documents research into the control of a reconfigurable conveyer system. The conveyer forms part of a reconfigurable assembly system. The main reason for research into reconfigurable systems is the need in the modern manufacturing industry for systems to be adaptable to changing product designs. Modern manufacturing requires many short production runs of different products, instead of the traditional long term production run of a standard product. The objective of this thesis was to design and implement a controller for a reconfigurable conveyer system. The conveyer hardware was fixed, but the control system had to be developed. A distributed control architecture was chosen. The conveyer was sectioned into different modules, and each module was controlled by a separate controller. This modularity enhanced the conveyer’s reconfigurability properties. The control was split into two sections, low level control (LLC) and high level control (HLC). LLC was responsible for the actuation of the conveyer’s hardware, using programmable logic controllers (PLCs). The HLC did more advanced tasks such as communication, task management and path planning. The software design was based on a modified ADACOR holonic architecture. The holonic architecture was used because it promotes reconfigurability. Path planning was done using Dijkstra’s algorithm. Experimental results show that the conveyer was able to successfully handle multiple pallets. A reconfiguration test was done, which showed improved results from previous work. The design mostly exhibits the characteristics of reconfigurability, which are modularity, customizability, scalability, integratibilty and diagnosability.