An Ontology-Based Domain Representation for Plan-Based Controllers in a Reconfigurable Manufacturing System

The paper describes a knowledge-based control loop as the key feature of a generic control architecture for nodes in a Reconfigurable Transportation Systems (RTSs). In particular, two main aspects are presented: (i) the design of an ontology-based representation of information related to both internal configurations/capabilities of a node and the active connections with its neighbors in the plant; (ii) the definition of a relationship between the ontology and the abstract model exploited by a temporal planning and execution module to implement control strategies of a single node. The main contribution is in proposing a connection between ontology-based representation and planning and execution model. The goal is to enable dynamic inference of control models so as to adapt control strategies to mutating shop-floor scenarios.