MODELING, ANALYSIS, AND OPTIMAL-CONTROL OF A CLASS OF HYBRID SYSTEMS

We propose a modeling framework for a class of hybrid systems which ar ise in many manufacturing environments and study related optimal contr ol problems. In this framework, discrete entities have a state charact erized by a temporal component whose evolution is described by event-d riven dynamics, and a physical component whose evolution is described by time-driven dynamics. As a first step towards developing an optimal control theory for such hybrid systems, we formulate a problem consis ting of a single-stage manufacturing process and use calculus of varia tions techniques to obtain structural properties and an explicit algor ithm for deriving optimal policies.