Set-up games: a heuristic game-theoretic approach to set-up decisions for heterarchical manufacturing systems

Heterarchical control systems have emerged as promising alternatives to conventional centralized and hierarchical shop floor control systems. However, research to date has largely ignored long-term control issues such as the timing of resource reconfigurations, which are vital for the avoidance of myopic decision-making. As traditional analysis techniques implicitly assume centralized analysis and implementation of policies, they are not directly applicable to heterarchical environments. A non-cooperative game-theoretic planning technique for autonomous analyses of reconfiguration decisions by heterarchical machine controllers is described. Under the proposed system, a machine controller evaluates a set-up game to determine appropriate actions when faced with a sequence-independent reconfiguration decision. The prescribed action is defined by a pure or mixed-strategy equilibrium of the set-up game. By evaluating a game, the machine controller accounts for the potential actions and reactions of other machine controllers in the system. The approach allows the autonomous machine controller to make set-up decisions about future actions while preserving the independence characteristic of controllers in heterarchical environments.