Run-to-run control of batch production process in manufacturing systems based on online measurement

Run-to-run control is an important and effective method for quality control of batch production process in manufacturing systems. Most of current run-to-run control methods are investigated based on offline sampled measurement due to the limitation of measurement technology. The sampled measurements cannot represent each run, thus lead to performance deterioration of run-to-run control methods. The development of new measurement technologies provides great opportunities to improve product quality, since all data of each run is obtained by online measurement. This paper presents a systematic run-to-run control method for batch production process in manufacturing systems based on online measurement. Firstly, a single-input-single-output process model of multiple workpieces (MSISO) is built and a MSISO double exponentially-weighted-moving-average (EWMA) controller is proposed. The proposed MSISO double EWMA controller updates control recipe of current run based on all output data of its previous run. Then, the stability analysis of the proposed MSISO double EWMA controller is conducted to obtain the sufficient conditions for the asymptotic stability of the control process in manufacturing systems. Mean square error (MSE) is used to evaluate the quality control performance. The results of simulation experiments and a case study show that the proposed method can effectively improve the control performance for batch production process in manufacturing systems when compared to other run-to-run-based methods.