Most control systems of flexible production cells have a hierarchical structure. They become very complicated and difficult to maintain and modify when the underlying production cells grow in size and complexity. Moreover, they are characterised by a relatively high sensitivity to failures. As opposed to that, heterarchical control systems are flexible, modular, easy to modifY, and-to some extent-fault-tolerant. In this paper, the performance of two control systems, with a hierarchical and a heterarchical structure, based on an exemplary flexible production cell is evaluated by means of simulation experiments. Under ideal circumstances, both control systems perform equally well.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.