A neuroendocrine-inspired approach for adaptive manufacturing system control

Abstract

Nowadays manufacturing companies are forced to have manufacturing systems that can support agile responses to the emergence of changing conditions. As biological organisms are quite capable of adapting to environmental changes and stimulus, bio-inspired concepts have been recognised as very suitable for adaptive manufacturing system control. In a biological body, the neuroendocrine system plays an important role in controlling and modulating the adaptive behaviour of biological organisms using neuro-control and hormone-regulation principles. This paper, therefore, proposes the novel concept of NeuroEndocrine-Inspired Manufacturing System (NEIMS). The proposed NEIMS control architecture is inherited from neuro-control and hormone-regulation principles to agilely deal with the frequent occurrence of unexpected disturbances at the shop floor level. From the cybernetics point of view, the control model of NEIMS is described in detail, and a test bed has been set up to enable the NEIMS simulation.