We describe K-NET, a support system for development of sequence control programs. The K-NET description model is based on the colored Petri net and timed Petri net. K-NET concisely expresses sequence control flow including synchronization, interlock and concurrence, and provides high-level data processing by being combined with a conventional procedural language. K-NET has an editor, simulator, generator, reporter and monitor to support the control program development procedure ranging from basic and detail design to programming and testing. We have added a new function to K-NET so it assists development of control programs for programmable controllers, and have applied it to an automatic bolt supplying system. The operation results are satisfactory.

This paper describes a programming system, K-NET for the development of control software for flexible manufacturing systems composed of robots, numerically-controlled machines, transfer machines and automatic storage/retrieval systems. K-NET is based on a high-level Petri net which makes it simple to express operational functions such as synchronization, interlock and concurrence in sequence control. Petri net in K-NET is colored one in which tokens have attributes, and timed one which can provide a notion of stochastic time. K-NET provides many kinds of boxes having specific functions, and gates specified the firing condition and the token flow control with IF-THEN rules. On the other hand, procedural language can be also used for information processing. K-NET can support all development stages including general design, detailed design, programming and testing. K-NET has an editor to input control specifications expressed with Petri net; a simulator to verify edited specifications; a generator to convert the net to C source programs for a computer or to ladder diagrams for a programmable controller; a reporter to print control specifications; and a monitor to display controller status in real-time. K-NET has been used in the development of control software for an automated guided vehicle system, and results show a 2/3rds cost-saving over development with conventional methods in which only procedural language is used.