Petri Net and Hybrid Heuristic Search-Based Method for Energy-Minimized Scheduling of Flexible Assembly Systems With Tool Change Processes

Jianchao Luo; Xinjian Jiang; MengChu Zhou; Keyi Xing; Abdullah Abusorrah

doi:10.1109/JAS.2025.125756

Volume 12 Issue 12

Dec. 2025

IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica

JCR Impact Factor: 19.2, Top 1 (SCI Q1)

CiteScore: 28.2, Top 1% (Q1)
Google Scholar h5-index: 95， TOP 5

Turn off MathJax

Article Contents

Article Navigation > IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica > 2025 > 12(12): 2473-2485

J. Luo, X. Jiang, M. C. Zhou, K. Xing, and A. Abusorrah, “Petri net and hybrid heuristic search-based method for energy-minimized scheduling of flexible assembly systems with tool change processes,” IEEE/CAA J. Autom. Sinica, vol. 12, no. 12, pp. 2473–2485, Dec. 2025. doi: 10.1109/JAS.2025.125756

Citation:

J. Luo, X. Jiang, M. C. Zhou, K. Xing, and A. Abusorrah, “Petri net and hybrid heuristic search-based method for energy-minimized scheduling of flexible assembly systems with tool change processes,” IEEE/CAA J. Autom. Sinica, vol. 12, no. 12, pp. 2473–2485, Dec. 2025. doi: 10.1109/JAS.2025.125756

Citation:

J. Luo, X. Jiang, M. C. Zhou, K. Xing, and A. Abusorrah, “Petri net and hybrid heuristic search-based method for energy-minimized scheduling of flexible assembly systems with tool change processes,” IEEE/CAA J. Autom. Sinica, vol. 12, no. 12, pp. 2473–2485, Dec. 2025. doi: 10.1109/JAS.2025.125756

PDF( 1354 KB)

Petri Net and Hybrid Heuristic Search-Based Method for Energy-Minimized Scheduling of Flexible Assembly Systems With Tool Change Processes

doi: 10.1109/JAS.2025.125756

Funds: This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (62003265), 2023 Suzhou Innovation and Entrepreneurship Leading Talents Program (Young Innovative Leading Talents) (ZXL2023178), Natural Science Basic Research Program of Shaanxi (2025JC-YBMS-656), Tongxiang Institute of Artificial General Intelligence (TAGI2-A-2024-0006), and the Deanship of Scientific Research (DSR) at King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (GPIP: 908-135-2024)

More Information

Author Bio:
Jianchao Luo received the Ph.D. degree in control science & engineering from Xi’an Jiaotong University in 2016. He joined the Northwestern Polytechnical University in 2017, where he is currently a tenured Associate Professor of software engineering. His current research interests include deadlock-free scheduling and control of AMSs

Xinjian Jiang received the B.S. degree in environmental engineering from Minzu University of China in 2021. He is currently pursuing the M.S. degree from the School of Software, Northwestern Polytechnical University. His current research interests include scheduling and control of flexible assembly systems

MengChu Zhou (Fellow, IEEE) received the B.S. degree in Control Engineering from Nanjing University of Science and Technology in 1983, M.S. degree in Automatic Control from Beijing Institute of Technology in 1986, and Ph.D. degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, USA, in 1990. He then joined New Jersey Institute of Technology where he has been a Distinguished Professor since 2013. His interests are in Petri nets, automation, robotics, big data, Internet of Things, cloud/edge computing, and AI. He has over 1400 publications including 17 books, over 900 journal papers including over 700 IEEE Transactions papers, 31 patents and 32 book-chapters. His recently co-authored books include Intelligent Scheduling of Tasks for Cloud-Edge-Device Computing Systems, Wiley-IEEE Press, Hoboken, NJ, 2025 (with B. Hu, Z. Cao, and M. Zhao) and Learning Automata and their Applications to Intelligent Systems, Wiley-IEEE Press, Hoboken, NJ, 2024 (with J. Zhang). He served as Editor-in-Chief of IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica, Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, and IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, and Editor of IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering. He served as a Guest-Editor for many journals including IEEE Internet of Things Journal, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, and IEEE Transactions on Semiconductor Manufacturing. He is presently Senior Editor of IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, and Associate Editor of Research, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, IEEE Internet of Things Journal, and Frontiers of Information Technology & Electronic Engineering. He is founding Chair/Co-chair of Technical Committee on AI-based Smart Manufacturing Systems and Technical Committee on Humanized Crowd Computing of IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society (SMC), Technical Committee on Semiconductor Manufacturing Automation of IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS). He chaired IEEE North Jersey Section SMC Chapter during 2013-2023 and has been the Chair of the RAS Chapter since 2024. He is also a member of IEEE TAB Periodicals Committee and Periodicals Review and Advisory Committee. He served as Vice-Chair of Fellow Evaluation Committee and Vice-President for Conferences and Meetings of IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society. He was General Chair of IEEE Conf. on Automation Science and Engineering, Washington D.C., August 23-26, 2008, General Co-Chair of 2003 IEEE International Conference on System, Man and Cybernetics (SMC), Washington DC, October 5−8, 2003, 2019 IEEE International Conference on SMC, Bari, Italy, Oct. 6−9, 2019, 2022 IEEE International Conference on SMC, Prague, Czech, October 9−12, 2022, and 2024 IEEE International Conference on SMC, Kuching, Malaysia, Oct. 6−10, 2024, Founding General Co-Chair of 2004 IEEE Int. Conf. on Networking, Sensing and Control, Taipei, March 21−23, 2004, and General Chair of 2006 IEEE Int. Conf. on Networking, Sensing and Control, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, U.S.A. April 23−25, 2006. He was Program Chair of 2010 IEEE International Conference on Mechatronics and Automation, August 4−7, 2010, Xi’an, China, 1998 and 2001 IEEE International Conference on SMC and 1997 IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation. Dr. Zhou has led or participated in over 60 research and education projects with total budget over $14M, funded by the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, NIST, New Jersey Science and Technology Commission, and industry. He is a recipient of Franklin V. Taylor Memorial Award, the Norbert Wiener Award Franklin V. Taylor Memorial Award, Norbert Wiener Award and Lotfi A. Zadeh Pioneer Award from IEEE SMC Society, Computer-Integrated Manufacturing UNIVERSITY-LEAD Award from Society of Manufacturing Engineers, Excellence in Research Prize and Medal from NJIT, Humboldt Research Award for US Senior Scientists from Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Distinguished Service Award from IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, and Edison Patent Award from the Research & Development Council of New Jersey. He is a life member of Chinese Association for Science and Technology-USA and served as its President in 1999. He is Fellow of IEEE, International Federation of Automatic Control, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Chinese Association of Automation and National Academy of Inventors

Keyi Xing (Member, IEEE) received the B.S. degree in mathematics from Northwest University in 1982, the M.S. degree in applied mathematics from Xidian University in 1985, and the Ph.D. degree in systems engineering from Xi’an Jiaotong University in 1994. He was with Xidian University in 1985. Since 2004, he has been with Xi’an Jiaotong University, where he is currently a Professor of systems engineering. His research interests include control and scheduling of automated manufacturing, discrete event, and hybrid systems

Abdullah Abusorrah (Senior Member, IEEE) is a Professor with King Abdulaziz University (KAU). He leads the Center for Renewable Energy and Power Systems at KAU. His field of interest includes smart grid, energy systems, and computational intelligence. He received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Nottingham, United Kingdom in 2007
Corresponding author: MengChu Zhou, e-mail: zhou@njit.edu
Received Date: 2025-05-14
Accepted Date: 2025-07-16

Abstract

Abstract

With the increasing concerns about energy consumption and environmental protection, minimizing energy consumption while ensuring desired productivity becomes more and more important in flexible assembly systems (FASs) design and operation. However, because of the complexity of deadlock-prone FASs, only a few researchers have addressed their scheduling problems. Besides, no existing literature in the field of scheduling of deadlock-prone FASs takes energy consumption minimization as the optimization criterion to our best knowledge. This paper presents an A^*-based hybrid heuristic search algorithm to minimize the total energy consumption of FASs with tool change processes. Based on a developed Petri net (PN) model, two energy functions are proposed to calculate the energy consumption of FASs. To achieve better performance, six new heuristic functions are designed to guide the search process by considering the features of FASs. Besides, two selection functions are proposed to evaluate the prospects of vertexes and choose the promising ones. Moreover, a dynamic window is applied in the algorithm to limit the search space, and a deadlock prevention policy is used to ensure feasible schedules. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can effectively find feasible schedules for FASs, and a well-designed heuristic function is likely to obtain schedules to meet industrial application requirements.
- Energy optimization,
- flexible assembly systems,
- heuristic search,
- petri net,
- scheduling,
- tool change

FullText(HTML)

References(40)

References

[1]	N. Viswanadham, Y. Narahari, and T. L. Johnson, “Deadlock prevention and deadlock avoidance in flexible manufacturing systems using Petri net models,” IEEE Trans. Robot. Autom., vol. 6, no. 6, pp. 713–723, Dec. 1990. doi: 10.1109/70.63257
[2]	J. Luo, Z. Liu, S. Wang, and K. Xing, “Robust deadlock avoidance policy for automated manufacturing system with multiple unreliable resources,” IEEE/CAA J. Autom. Sinica, vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 812–821, May 2020. doi: 10.1109/JAS.2020.1003096
[3]	M. Uzam, Z. W. Li, G. Gelen, and R. S. Zakariyya, “A divide-and-conquer-method for the synthesis of liveness enforcing supervisors for flexible manufacturing systems,” J. Intell. Manuf., vol. 27, no. 5, pp. 1111–1129, Oct. 2016. doi: 10.1007/s10845-014-0938-z
[4]	S. G. Wang, W. L. Duo, X. Guo, X. N. Jiang, D. You, K. Barkaoui, and M. C. Zhou, “Computation of an emptiable minimal siphon in a subclass of Petri nets using mixed-integer programming,” IEEE/CAA J. Autom. Sinica, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 219–226, Jan. 2021. doi: 10.1109/JAS.2020.1003210
[5]	H. Boucheneb, K. Barkaoui, Q. Xing, K. Z. Wang, G. Y. Liu, and Z. W. Li, “Time based deadlock prevention for Petri nets,” Automatica, vol. 137, p. 110119, Mar. 2022. doi: 10.1016/j.automatica.2021.110119
[6]	B. Huang, M. C. Zhou, C. Wang, A. Abusorrah, and Y. Al-Turki, “Deadlock-free supervisor design for robotic manufacturing cells with uncontrollable and unobservable events,” IEEE/CAA J. Autom. Sinica, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 597–605, Mar. 2021. doi: 10.1109/JAS.2020.1003207
[7]	O. T. Baruwa, M. A. Piera, and A. Guasch, “Deadlock-free scheduling method for flexible manufacturing systems based on timed colored Petri nets and anytime heuristic search,” IEEE Trans. Syst., Man, Cybern.: Syst., vol. 45, no. 5, pp. 831–846, May 2015. doi: 10.1109/TSMC.2014.2376471
[8]	Q. Zhu, B. Li, Y. Hou, H. Li, and N. Wu, “Scheduling dual-arm multi-cluster tools with regulation of post-processing time,” IEEE/CAA J. Autom. Sinica, vol. 10, no. 8, pp. 1730–1742, Aug. 2023. doi: 10.1109/JAS.2023.123189
[9]	J. Wang, H. Hu, C. Pan, Y. Zhou, and L. Li, “Scheduling dual-arm cluster tools with multiple wafer types and residency time Constraints,” IEEE/CAA J. Autom. Sinica, vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 776–789, May 2020. doi: 10.1109/JAS.2020.1003150
[10]	Z. Zhao, S. Liu, M. C. Zhou, and A. Abusorrah, “Dual-objective mixed integer linear program and memetic algorithm for an industrial group scheduling problem,” IEEE/CAA J. Autom. Sinica, vol. 8, no. 6, pp. 1199–1209, Jun. 2021. doi: 10.1109/JAS.2020.1003539
[11]	Q. Zhu, H. Li, C. Wang, and Y. Hou, “Scheduling a single-arm multi-cluster tool with a condition-based cleaning operation,” IEEE/CAA J. Autom. Sinica, vol. 10, no. 10, pp. 1965–1983, Oct. 2023. doi: 10.1109/JAS.2023.123327
[12]	B. Huang, M. C. Zhou, A. Abusorrah, and K. Sedraoui, “Scheduling robotic cellular manufacturing systems with timed Petri net, A.* search, and admissible heuristic function,” IEEE Trans. Autom. Sci. Eng., vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 243–250, Jan. 2022. doi: 10.1109/TASE.2020.3026351
[13]	A. L. de Sousa and A. S. de Oliveira, “Deadlock-free production using Dempster-Shafer and preset methods in predictive scheduling for multiagent controlled flexible manufacturing systems,” Appl. Soft Comput., vol. 152, p. 111234, Feb. 2024. doi: 10.1016/j.asoc.2024.111234
[14]	B. Huang and M. C. Zhou, “Symbolic scheduling of robotic cellular manufacturing systems with timed Petri nets,” IEEE Trans. Control Syst. Technol., vol. 30, no. 5, pp. 1876–1887, Sep. 2022. doi: 10.1109/TCST.2021.3123963
[15]	M. P. Fanti, G. Maione, and B. Turchiano, “Design of supervisors to avoid deadlock in flexible assembly systems,” Int. J. Flexible Manuf. Syst., vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 153–171, Apr. 2002. doi: 10.1023/A:1014482419706
[16]	E. Roszkowska, “Supervisory control for deadlock avoidance in compound processes,” IEEE Trans. Syst., Man, Cybern.-Part A: Syst. Humans, vol. 34, no. 1, pp. 52–64, Jan. 2004. doi: 10.1109/TSMCA.2003.820572
[17]	F.-S. Hsieh, “Analysis of flexible assembly processes based on structural decomposition of Petri nets,” IEEE Trans. Syst., Man, Cybern.-Part A: Syst. Humans, vol. 37, no. 5, pp. 792–803, Sep. 2007. doi: 10.1109/TSMCA.2007.902651
[18]	N. Wu, M. C. Zhou, and Z. W. Li, “Resource-oriented Petri net for deadlock avoidance in flexible assembly systems,” IEEE Trans. Syst., Man, Cybern.-Part A: Syst. Humans, vol. 38, no. 1, pp. 56–69, Jan. 2008. doi: 10.1109/TSMCA.2007.909542
[19]	H. Hu, M. C. Zhou, Z. Li, and Y. Tang, “Deadlock-free control of automated manufacturing systems with flexible routes and assembly operations using petri nets,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Inf., vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 109–121, Feb. 2013. doi: 10.1109/TII.2012.2198661
[20]	H. Hu and M. C. Zhou, “A Petri net-based discrete-event control of automated manufacturing systems with assembly operations,” IEEE Trans. Control Syst. Technol., vol. 23, no. 2, pp. 513–524, Mar. 2015. doi: 10.1109/TCST.2014.2342664
[21]	K. Xing, F. Wang, M. C. Zhou, H. Lei, and J. Luo, “Deadlock characterization and control of flexible assembly systems with Petri nets,” Automatica, vol. 87, pp. 358–364, Jan. 2018. doi: 10.1016/j.automatica.2017.09.001
[22]	N. Du, H. Hu, and M. C. Zhou, “Robust deadlock avoidance and control of automated manufacturing systems with assembly operations using Petri nets,” IEEE Trans. Autom. Sci. Eng., vol. 17, no. 4, pp. 1961–1975, Oct. 2020. doi: 10.1109/TASE.2020.2983672
[23]	Y. Yang, H. S. Hu, and Y. Liu, “A Petri net-based distributed control of automated manufacturing systems with assembly operations,” in Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Automation Science and Engineering, Gothenburg, Sweden, 2015, pp. 1090−1097.
[24]	J. C. Luo, Z. Q. Liu, and M. C. Zhou, “A Petri net based deadlock avoidance policy for flexible manufacturing systems with assembly operations and multiple resource acquisition,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Inf., vol. 15, no. 6, pp. 3379–3387, Jun. 2019. doi: 10.1109/TII.2018.2876343
[25]	J. C. Luo, Z. Q. Liu, M. C. Zhou, and K. Y. Xing, “Deadlock-free scheduling of flexible assembly systems based on Petri nets and local search,” IEEE Trans. Syst., Man, Cybern.: Syst., vol. 50, no. 10, pp. 3658–3669, Oct. 2020. doi: 10.1109/TSMC.2018.2855685
[26]	X. Li, K. Xing, and Q. Lu, “Hybrid particle swarm optimization algorithm for scheduling flexible assembly systems with blocking and deadlock constraints,” Eng. Appl. Artif. Intell., vol. 105, p. 104411, Oct. 2021. doi: 10.1016/j.engappai.2021.104411
[27]	X. Li and K. Xing, “Iterative widen heuristic beam search algorithm for scheduling problem of flexible assembly systems,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Inf., vol. 17, no. 11, pp. 7348–7358, Nov. 2021. doi: 10.1109/TII.2021.3049338
[28]	J. C. Luo, K. Y. Xing, M. C. Zhou, X. L. Li, and X. N. Wang, “Deadlock-free scheduling of automated manufacturing systems using Petri nets and hybrid heuristic search,” IEEE Trans. Syst., Man, Cybern.: Syst., vol. 45, no. 3, pp. 530–541, Mar. 2015. doi: 10.1109/TSMC.2014.2351375
[29]	X. Li, K. Xing, Y. Wu, X. Wang, and J. Luo, “Total energy consumption optimization via genetic algorithm in flexible manufacturing systems,” Comput. Ind. Eng., vol. 104, pp. 188–200, Feb. 2017. doi: 10.1016/j.cie.2016.12.008
[30]	J. Luo, X. Jiang, M. C. Zhou, K. Xing, and A. Abusorrah, Supplementary file of this paper. 2024. [online]. Available: https://github.com/JianchaoLuo/Supplementary-file-for-Petri-Net-and-Hybrid-Heuristic-Search-based-Method-for-Energy-Minimized-Sched.git
[31]	A. Reyes, H. Yu, G. Kelleher, and S. Lloyd, “Integrating Petri nets and hybrid heuristic search for the scheduling of FMS,” Comput. Ind. Eng., vol. 47, no. 1, pp. 123–138, Jan. 2002. doi: 10.1016/S0166-3615(01)00124-5
[32]	B. Huang, M. Zhou, X. S. Lu, and A. Abusorrah, “Scheduling of resource allocation systems with timed Petri nets: A survey,” ACM Comput. Surv., vol. 55, no. 11, p. 230, Nov. 2023.
[33]	X. Guo, M. C. Zhou, A. Abusorrah, F. Alsokhiry, and K. Sedraoui, “Disassembly sequence planning: A survey,” IEEE/CAA J. Autom. Sinica, vol. 8, no. 7, pp. 1308–1324, Jul. 2021. doi: 10.1109/JAS.2020.1003515
[34]	Z. C. Cao, C. R. Lin, and M. C. Zhou, “A knowledge-based cuckoo search algorithm to schedule a flexible job shop with sequencing flexibility,” IEEE Trans. Autom. Sci. Eng., vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 56–69, Jan. 2021. doi: 10.1109/TASE.2019.2945717
[35]	C. Lin, Z. C. Cao, and M. C. Zhou, “Autoencoder-embedded iterated local search for energy-minimized task schedules of human-cyber-physical systems,” IEEE Trans. Autom. Sci. Eng., vol. 22, pp. 512–522, May 2023. doi: 10.1109/TASE.2023.3267714
[36]	Q. Zhu, G. Wang, N. Wu, Y. Qiao, Y. Hou, M. Zhou, and S. Zhao, "Scheduling Single-Arm Multicluster Tools for Two-Type Wafers With Lower-Bound Cycle Time," IEEE Trans. on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems, vol. 53, no. 11, pp. 6658−6671, Nov. 2023. doi: 10.1109/JAS.2023.123327
[37]	S. Lou, Z. Hu, Y. Zhang, Y. Feng, M. C. Zhou, and C. Lv, “Human-cyber-physical system for industry 5.0: A review from a human-centric perspective,” IEEE Trans. Autom. Sci. Eng., vol. 22, pp. 494–511, 2025. doi: 10.1109/TASE.2024.3360476
[38]	Y. Yang, Z. Liu, Z. Zhao, and M. C. Zhou, “Deadlock analysis and avoidance for automated manufacturing systems based on petri nets with forward-conflict-free structures,” IEEE Trans. Syst., Man, Cybern.: Syst., vol. 55, no. 3, pp. 1634–1646, Mar. 2025. doi: 10.1109/TSMC.2024.3509901
[39]	J. Patalas-Maliszewska, R. Wiśniewski, M. Zhou, M. Topczak, and M. Wojnakowski, “Applying additive manufacturing technologies to a supply chain: A petri net-based decision model,” Int. J. Appl. Math. Comput. Sci., vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 513–525, Sep. 2024.
[40]	Y. Fu, M. Zhou, X. Guo, L. Qi, K. Gao, and A. Albeshri, “Multiobjective scheduling of energy-efficient stochastic hybrid open shop with brain storm optimization and simulation evaluation,” IEEE Trans. Syst., Man, Cybern.: Syst., vol. 54, no. 7, pp. 4260–4272, Jul. 2024. doi: 10.1109/TSMC.2024.3376292

Supplements(0)

Cited By

Proportional views

Proportional views

通讯作者: 陈斌, bchen63@163.com

1.
沈阳化工大学材料科学与工程学院沈阳 110142

Figures(5) / Tables(9)

Get Citation

PDF

XML

Article Metrics

Article views (11) PDF downloads(3)

Petri Net and Hybrid Heuristic Search-Based Method for Energy-Minimized Scheduling of Flexible Assembly Systems With Tool Change Processes

doi: 10.1109/JAS.2025.125756

Abstract

References

Proportional views

Catalog

通讯作者: 陈斌, bchen63@163.com

Article Metrics

Export File

Citation

Format

Content