This thesis deals with the control of myopia in Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS). Myopia arises when decisional entities take local decisions using limited amount of information. This decision making targets a fast reactivity under perturbations but compromises the overall performance. Thus this phenomenon should be controlled to obtain more efficient control architectures. After a presenting the related literature in myopia in other domains, myopic behavior in FMS is defined. An analysis of state-of-the-art regarding different types of control architectures determined that hybrid control architectures, mixing hierarchy and heterarchy, are the best option to control myopia. Therefore, a thorough study on hybrid control architectures is presented. Afterwards, a new architecture is proposed: ORCA. ORCA first described and then applied to FMS control (ORCA-FMS). ORCA-FMS combines two approaches: a linear model (ILP) and a potential fields approach. ORCA-FMS is then applied to the case study of the flexible cell of Valenciennes’ AIP PRIMECA. First, a simulation model, as close as possible to the real case study is presented. It allows testing the architecture in the simulation environment NetLogo. Then, to validate the behaviors observed in simulation, the architecture is implemented on the real cell using the active product concept. The industrial equipment used for the implementation, the experimental protocol and the results are detailed and discussed.
ORCA : a hybrid architecture for the control of myopia in flexible manufacturing systems control