Abstract
Even for a simple automated manufacturing system (AMS), such as a general single-unit resource allocation system, the computation of an optimal or maximally permissive deadlock-avoidance policy (DAP) is NP-hard. Based on its Petri-net model, this paper addresses the deadlock-avoidance problem in AMSs, which can be modeled by systems of simple sequential processes with resources. First, deadlock is characterized as a perfect resource-transition circuit that is saturated at a reachable state. Second, for AMSs that do not have one-unit resources shared by two or more perfect resource-transition circuits that do not contain each other, it is proved that there are only two kinds of reachable states: safe states and deadlock. An algorithm for determining the safety of a new state resulting from a safe one is then presented, which has polynomial complexity. Hence, the optimal DAP with polynomial complexity can be obtained by a one-step look-ahead method, and the deadlock-avoidance problem is polynomially solved with Petri nets for the first time. Finally, by reducing a Petri-net model and applying the design of optimal DAP to the reduced one, a suboptimal DAP for a general AMS is synthesized, and its computation is of polynomial complexity.