Robust Fault-Tolerant Control for Reentrant Manufacturing Systems With Periodic Faults

This article investigates the robust fault-tolerant control problem for a class of reentrant manufacturing systems (RMSs) subject to periodic workstation faults. First, an impulsive hyperbolic partial differential equation (IHPDE) continuum model is introduced to characterize the spatiotemporal evolution of work-in-progress (WIP) in RMSs, in which the state jumps caused by workstation faults are explicitly captured. The fault-induced WIP state jumps are further classified into two cases, namely, mixed WIP state jumps and destabilizing WIP state jumps. Then, for each case, a fuzzy-model-based integral sliding mode control approach is developed to achieve fault-tolerant stabilization of the considered RMSs. Under the proposed control schemes, the RMSs affected by periodic machinery failures can robustly and agilely track predicted market demand while maintaining stable production output. Finally, numerical simulations are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed fault-tolerant control schemes, and the potential Zeno behavior of the closed-loop system is also discussed.