On-line scheduling of robotic cells with post-processing residency constraints

Abstract

This paper considers the problem of on-line scheduling of robotic cells with post-processing residency constraints. We model this scheduling problem with temporal constraints using Dechter, Meiri, and Pearl's formalism. Then, we present an on-line scheduling algorithm with polynomial computational complexity. The on-line scheduling algorithm consists of FEASIBLE/spl I.bar/SCHED/spl I.bar/SPACE and OPTIMAL/spl I.bar/SCHED. The former finds feasible solution space for a newly inserted part, which guarantees both logical and temporal correctness. The latter computes the optimal solution in the feasible solution space obtained previously. The objective of the scheduling is to minimize the completion time of the last operation of the part. We prove that each procedure has polynomial complexity.