Patent ID: 6922593
Filing Date: 2005-07-26
Classification: G05B

Abstract:
1. A method for control of a real system over a plurality of times, said real system comprising a plurality of discrete items, a plurality of actions, and a plurality of resources, where at each of said times each of said items is in one of a plurality of classes, and where application of one of said actions to one of said items in one of said classes at one of said times will change the class of the item, and where said application of one of said actions to one of said items at one of said times will consume some of said resources, said control comprising timing of said actions and allocation of said resources to said actions, and said method optimizing the system by maximizing a plurality of rewards accrued by the system over time, said method comprising the steps of: (a) modeling the real system by a conceptual fluid-model system, said conceptual fluid-model system comprising: (b) formulating a separated continuous linear programming optimization problem for the fluid-model system from data of the real system, comprising: (c) solving said separated continuous linear programming optimization problem, by an algorithm comprising a sequence of iterations, each of said iterations comprising to obtain a fluid solution, comprising the optimal values of the controls of the fluid system and the optimal values of the states of the fluid system for all the times from 0 to T, and finally (d) controlling the plurality of discrete items of the original real system in accordance with the optimal solution of the fluid-model system.