Efficient messaging through cluster coordinators in decentralized controlled material flow systems

The modularization of the hard- and software is one approach handling the demand for increasing flexibility and changeability of automated material flow systems. A control that is distributed across several different hardware controllers leads to a great demand for coordination between the modules while planning for example transports, especially if there is a mutual dependency between the modules on the executing tasks. Short-term changes in planning often initiate a rescheduling chain reaction, which causes a high communication load in the system. In the presented approach, module clusters with a centralized coordinator are automatically formed out of multiple modules and substitutional take over the surrounding communication for the modules. As a result, they minimize exchanged messages by focusing on the essential information.