JPH01201703A - Resource suppliable time zone calculating device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To calculate a time zone by a systematic technique by expressing resource supply quantity information and resource consumption quantity information by a functional format, resolving, etc., both the pieces of information into maximum included quadrangles and obtaining the resource suppliable time zone. CONSTITUTION:An ESHELL 20 as an expert system constructing tool operates under the environment of an UTILISP 25 and constructs a frame file 22 and a KS file 23 which become an inference engine 21 and a knowledge base. A UDF 24 calculates resource supply residual quantity, etc., and a schedule file 29 stores an obtained mission schedule. The frame file stores a resource frame 22a and a mission frame 22b in frame structure. Thus, the pattern of the resource supply quantity information and the pattern of the resource consumption quantity information are resolved into the maximum included quadrangles of the quadrangle which are included maximumly in the patterns, the time zone in the included state of both the pieces of information is obtained and the time zone of a common part is calculated.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (Summary) The present invention provides a method for calculating a time period during which resources can be supplied when a resource source with a limited resource supply capacity supplies resources to a resource consuming device. Regarding time zone calculation device.

The objective is to be able to calculate the time slots in which resources can be supplied using a common method even for different types of resource sources.

In a resource supply available time slot calculation device for calculating a resource supply available time slot to a resource consuming device,
supply pattern storage means for representing and storing resource supply amount information of a resource source in the form of a function that changes stepwise with respect to time; and a function that changes resource consumption amount information of a resource consuming device in a stepwise manner with respect to time. consumption pattern storage means for representing and storing the resource supply amount information and the resource consumption amount information in the format of , and maximum included rectangle decomposition means for decomposing the resource supply amount information and the resource consumption amount information into maximum included rectangles.

a decomposition rectangle possible time period calculation means for calculating a time period in which the decomposition rectangle of the resource consumption information decomposed by the maximum included rectangle decomposition means is included in the decomposition rectangle of the resource supply amount information; The present invention is configured to include a common time period calculation means for calculating a time period of a common portion of the time period calculated by the time period calculation means.

[Industrial application field]

The present invention is a mission system for scheduling various experiments (hereinafter referred to as missions) such as materials experiments, life sciences, and scientific observations to be carried out on the Japan Experimental Module (hereinafter referred to as JEM) to be constructed on the space station in the United States. The present invention relates to a resource available time slot calculation device applied to a scheduling device.

[Conventional technology]

In the mid-1990s, JEM was placed on the U.S. space station.
is being built in a zero-gravity, high-vacuum environment in outer space.

Nine different missions are scheduled to be carried out by making effective use of the environment, including high-energy particles. What is the operational plan for carrying out such a mission?

After creating a long-term plan through international coordination over a time span of about 5 years, a nine-year plan, one-eighth quarterly (45-day) plan, a weekly plan, and a daily plan are elaborated in the order of steps. It is being

Of the operational plans constructed in this way, ground operation control is responsible for creating plans ranging from annual plans, which are relatively long-term plans, to weekly plans. ) is onboard JE
It will be uplinked to M integrated control. and,
The onboard crew will conduct missions based on this anoplinked base schedule.

If the base schedule needs to be reviewed due to the progress of the space station or JEM, they will be responsible for creating daily plans and changing the base schedule.

In this way, in JEM, the onboard crew is tasked with the daily task of creating daily plans for mission operations as necessary. In creating this daily plan.

The crew decides on the experiment start times for multiple missions, taking into consideration that resource consumption, such as power consumption and fluid consumption, required to carry out the mission will be within the JEM resource supply. I have to do it. FIG. 12 shows a list of an example of restrictive conditions for implementing a mission. As shown in Figure 12, there are a considerable number of resource limitations that apply to the implementation of one mission, and the number of missions scheduled to be implemented in a day is also quite large, about 10. , it is expected that the burden of creating a schedule for carrying out a mission, even for one day, will be quite heavy for the crew0.For example, in the case of FMPT (First Materials Experiment),1 It takes about a week to create a similar experiment schedule for each day with two manual tasks.

In the future, there is a need to develop a mission scheduling device that can automatically create a mission schedule through dialogue with the crew. In order to complete this mission scheduling device, it is essential to develop a device for calculating the available resource supply time period, which calculates the time period during which resources can be supplied from resource sources with limited supply capacity to resource consuming devices. . However, participation in an experiment conducted on a space station such as JEM has never been seen before in Japan, and there is currently no prior art that is compatible with the mission scheduling device to which the present invention relates.

From now on, it is necessary to configure a resource supply available time slot calculation device from a completely new perspective.

[Problem that the invention seeks to solve]

As explained above, the present invention provides a mission operation scheduling system (in Figure 13, " The aim is to provide the following services (abbreviated as ``MISES''). In this scheduling system, there is a limit to the resource supply capacity of the JEM resource source, and since it is necessary to efficiently implement as many missions as possible, a device for calculating available resource supply time periods is provided to realize scheduling. It is necessary to let it happen.

However, as shown in FIG. 12, the resource sources scheduled to be implemented in JEM include two resources with quite different characteristics, such as electric power and crew. Moreover, the types of resources required by each mission also vary. From now on, if you try to calculate the time period in which resources can be supplied blindly by trial and error using a computer, as shown in the search tree in Figure 14, search tree, and.

Regarding the scheduling of one mission.

There is "possibility of the existence of an infinite number of solutions within the schedulable time period", and the number of searches related to these is.

This results in a so-called "combinatorial explosion," and the problem arises that scheduling cannot be determined within a practical amount of time.

The present invention aims to solve these problems.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a resource supply available time slot calculation device that can calculate resource supply available time slots using a common method even for different types of resource sources.

[Means for solving problems]

FIG. 1 is a diagram explaining the principle of the present invention.

In the figure, l is a supply pattern storage means, which stores resource supply amount information of resource sources. The resource supply amount information stored at this time is configured to be expressed and stored in the form of a number of intervals that changes stepwise over nine hours for all resource sources. Reference numeral 2 denotes a consumption pattern storage means, which stores resource consumption amount information of resource consuming devices. Resource consumption information stored at this time is also included. All resource sources are configured to be expressed and stored in the form of a function that changes stepwise over 9 hours. 3
is the maximum contained quadrilateral decomposition means.

The pattern of the resource supply amount information stored in the supply pattern storage means 1 and the pattern of the resource consumption amount information stored in the consumption pattern storage means 2 are calculated based on the maximum number of rectangles included in these patterns in large quantities. Decompose by containing rectangle. 4 is a decomposition rectangle possible time period calculation means, which calculates the time period in which the maximum included rectangle of the resource consumption information is included in the maximum included rectangle of the resource supply amount information for all combinations of maximum included rectangles. demand. 5 is a common time zone calculation means.

The time zone of the common portion of the time zones determined by the decomposable rectangle possible time zone calculating means 4 is calculated.

[Effect]

In the present invention, the resource supply amount information and the resource consumption amount information are expressed in the form of 8 functions that change stepwise with respect to time for all resource sources, and the resource supply amount information and the resource consumption amount information are It is decomposed into containing rectangles, and the common part of the time period of the included state found between these maximum included rectangles is calculated to determine the resource supplyable time period, so it is unified regardless of the type of resource source. This means that the time period during which resources can be supplied can be calculated using a method similar to the above.

〔Example〕

Hereinafter, the present invention will be explained in detail according to examples.

FIG. 2 shows a system configuration for realizing the present invention.

In the figure, 20 is ESHELL, 24 is UDF, 25 is UT
ILISP, 26 is TSS, 27 is FORTRAN, 2
8 is a GPS, and 29 is a schedule file. ESHELL20 as an expert system construction tool
operates under the environment of UTILISP 25 to construct an inference engine 21, a frame file 22 and a KS file 23 that serve as a knowledge base. UDF24 is.

It is provided so that the functions of UTILISP25 can be used, and calculates the remaining amount of resource supply, etc.

FORTRAN 27 and GSP 28 are provided to improve the man-machine interface, and the schedule file 29 stores the required mission schedule.

The frame file 22 includes a source frame 22 representing resource supply amount information of each resource source of JEM.
a, and mission frame 2, which represents the resource consumption information of each mission to be implemented in JEM.
2b will be stored in a frame structure which is an expression of a nine-semantic network. FIG. 3 shows an example of this resource frame 22a, and FIG. 4 shows an example of this mission frame 22b. As shown in Fig. 3, the resource supply amount of JEM resource sources such as electric power and crew changes over time.9 In the present invention, this is approximated and expressed by a stepwise function, and the pattern is The resource supply amount is represented by a combination of time and value pairs in the resource frame 22a. The resource frame 22a is configured such that an area representing the resource supply capacity is also described. Similarly, as shown in FIG.

The amount of resource consumption required by a mission to carry out the mission is also approximated and expressed as a stepwise function with respect to time, and the resource consumption amount of the patterned mission is expressed as a time and value in the mission frame 22b. It will be represented by a combination of bears. The mission frame 22b is configured to also describe the area (total resource consumption), height (maximum resource consumption value), and length (consumption time) that represent the resource consumption characteristics of the mission. .

In this manner, the present invention is configured to commonly express the resource supply amount and resource consumption amount in the form of a stepwise function for all resource sources of JEM.

Next, the blackboard that will be used as the work area of the inference engine 21 will be explained. A blackboard is an expression of a semantic network, in which the basic unit is a node that associates an attribute with a value of that attribute, and meaning is given by links between these nodes. On the blackboard of the present invention, as shown in FIG.
, "Solution" four types of nodes are prepared.

This management node manages resource types, scheduling periods, mission types, and scheduling methods, and the planning node manages characteristic data for mission scheduling.

The resource node manages resource supply patterns. Plan nodes are linked to each other in the relationship of previous plan and next plan, and plan nodes and resource nodes are linked to each other in the relationship of supply and consumption of resources.

Next, it will be explained how the mission scheduling device of the present invention realizes mission scheduling according to the knowledge source transition diagram shown in FIG. here.

“Initial setting KS”, “possible time slot calculation KS”, “allocation time determination KS”, “new pattern generation KS” shown in FIG.
″, @scheduling success KS″.

The knowledge source for “scheduling failure KS” and “backtracking KS” is the KS file 2 shown in Figure 2.
It will be stored in 3. These sources of knowledge define procedures for reasoning, basically.

1F Condition THEN is described by a production rule in the form of conclusion/action,
Mission scheduling is realized by the inference engine 21 using the information stored in the frame file 22 to perform inference based on these knowledge sources.

(b) Initial setting KS The initial setting KS that will be executed first is:

It is a knowledge source for securing a work area, ordering missions, and setting initial values. In executing this initial setting KS, first, the type of resource is determined as a limiting condition when scheduling a mission.

The scheduling period, scheduling mission name, and scheduling method will be set in the management node of the blackboard.

Next, the resource frame 22a and the mission frame 2
The mission scheduling order will be determined using the data stored in 2b.

This ordering is performed using the resource with the highest resource consumption rate (hereinafter abbreviated as DR) according to the following formula. When the total mixin is determined, if the scheduling method is centralized scheduling (scheduling in which missions are concentrated in the first half of the scheduling period), each Calculate Si using the following formula for each mission.

$i=α・ki+β・1i ki: Serial number j in ascending order of DR consumption area! i:D
Serial numbers α and β in descending order of consumption time of R: weighting coefficients for consumption area and consumption time.The scheduling order is determined in descending order of this St, and 9 decentralized scheduling (
When (scheduling in which missions are distributed over the entire scheduling period), St of the following formula is calculated for each mission.

Si=α・ki−1r−hi ki: Serial number in descending order of consumed area of DR hi: DR
Serial numbers α, γ in descending order of maximum consumption value; weighting coefficients for consumption area and maximum consumption value This is determined by determining the scheduling order in descending order of Si.

The reason for determining the scheduling order according to such an evaluation formula is that it is easier to find a solution by banking from the largest one, and furthermore.

This is because scheduling tends to become difficult when a mission with a horizontally long pattern comes later in the order when using centralized scheduling, and when a mission with a tall pattern comes later in the order when using decentralized scheduling. .

Once the scheduling order is determined in this way,
As shown in Figure 5, the "mission names" of the management nodes on the blackboard are re-registered in this order (in the example of Figure 5, A, -
A, -Bt)L is corrected, a plan node is generated, the mission name is registered in this order, and a link pointer is attached to the corresponding resource node. Then, in order to start scheduling, the fifth In addition to registering the mission name with the earliest scheduling order registered in the Plan 1 node in the global variable area in the figure (As in the example in Figure 5), the "new pattern" of the resource node to which the Plan 1 node links is registered. Resource frame 22a representing the resource supply amount of each resource source
supply pattern will be set.

(b) Possible time period calculation KS Possible time period calculation KS, which will be executed following the initial setting KS, first calculates the possible time period calculation KS that is capable of supplying resources to the mission of the plan node pointed to by the global variable area. Find the available scheduling time.

Next, according to the flowchart shown in FIG. 7, an outline of the process for determining the schedulable time slot will be explained. First step 1.

Decompose the resource consumption pattern into maximum containing rectangles. An example of this is shown in FIG. 8. Here, the maximum included rectangle is a rectangle that has every other orthogonal point on the resource consumption pattern (this specifies the pattern shape) on its sides, and This refers to the rectangular shape that will be included in the consumption pattern to the maximum extent. As shown in Figure 8, the maximum included rectangle found is (2 widths vertically,
start time). Next, in step 2, one of the maximum included rectangles found in step 1 is selected. And in step 3.

This time, as shown in FIG. 9, the resource supply pattern is decomposed into maximum containing rectangles in step 4.

Select one of the largest contained rectangles found in step 3.

Continued (In step 5, check whether the rectangle selected in step 2 fits into the rectangle selected in step 4 or not, and when it does, find the time period in which it can fit. Since this process involves rectangles, a list representation format is used. This means that it can be implemented easily.

With this process, 9, for example, (75, 10°10) in Fig. 8.
By increasing the time (15 to 30), the square becomes (100, 25, 25) in Figure 9, and by increasing the time (65 to 80), it becomes the (100, 25, 25) square in Figure 9.
25, 75) can be included in the rectangle. Judgment in step 6.

When it is determined that the process in step 5 has been executed for all the maximum included rectangles of the resource supply pattern, in step 7, the time periods obtained in step 5 are logically summed. With this process.

Regarding the rectangle (75, 10, 10) in Figure 8, (
The time zones 15-30) and (65-80) will be found.

If it is determined in step 8 that the process in step 7 has been executed for all the rectangles obtained in step 1, then (in step 9, the available scheduling time is calculated by taking the AND of the time periods obtained in step 7). Calculate the band. Through this process.

For example, for the rectangle (25, 25, 0) in Figure 8, the time period (θ~75) is determined in step 7, so the rectangle (75° 10.10) in Figure 8 is A schedulable time period (15-30.65-75) as shown in FIG. 1O is determined by logical product with the time period (15-30 degrees, 65-80 degrees).

By executing the flowchart shown in FIG. 7 in this way, the schedulable time period for one resource (the time period in which the resource supply can be greater than the resource consumption) can be determined, so when a mission consumes multiple resources, As shown in Figure 11, by executing the flowchart in Figure 7 for all resources, and then performing the logical product of the schedulable time slots found through this execution, the true schedulable time slot can be found. . The schedulable time zone obtained in this way is set as the "schedulable time zone" of the planning node.

Furthermore, in this possible time slot calculation KS, candidates for scheduling times are selected from among the determined available schedulable time slots.In the case of centralized scheduling, the selection of scheduling candidate times is performed based on reasonable scheduling times within the available schedulable time slots. They are selected at intervals of time width T, and the priority is determined according to the time order of the nine time series. In addition, during distributed scheduling, if the schedulable time period is longer than a certain reasonable time width T, the resource remaining amount pattern is searched and the two points with the largest remaining amount values are found, and the schedulable time period is If it is shorter than T, the times at both ends are taken as scheduling time Φ candidates.

Priority is determined in descending order of remaining resource amount.

The reason why we selected scheduling candidate times according to these selection criteria is that if scheduling fails at a certain time, there is a high possibility that scheduling will also fail at that time, so it should be retried at a time a certain distance away. In distributed scheduling, the purpose of optimization is to intensively execute as many missions as possible in the first half of the scheduling period, and in distributed scheduling, the purpose of optimization is to consume the remaining resources on average. This is because it is the purpose of

The scheduling time candidates obtained in this manner are sorted in priority order and set as the ``candidate time'' of the planning node.

(C) Allocation time determination KS The allocation time determination KS, which is executed following the possible time slot calculation KS, selects the time with the highest priority among the scheduling time candidate times set in the planning node. This is a knowledge source for setting the time in the "assigned time" and deleting that time from the "candidate time". By executing this knowledge source, the scheduling time to try is set.

(d) New pattern generation KS The new pattern generation KS calculates the remaining resource supply amount according to the following formula when the scheduling time is set.

Remaining resource supply amount - (Resource supply amount) - (Resource consumption amount) Set the remaining resource supply amount found by this calculation to 1 new pattern 3 of the resource node linked to the next plan node of the plan node pointed to by the global variable area. do.

In the present invention, the resource supply amount and resource consumption amount for all resource sources are both expressed in the form of a function that changes stepwise with respect to time.

The remaining amount of resource supply, which is determined as the difference value between these values, is also in the form of a function that changes stepwise with respect to time.Then, the #r pattern generation KS changes the plan node pointed to by the global variable area to the next plan node. It serves as a knowledge source for issuing the possible time slot calculation KS in order to perform update linking and scheduling the 9th mission.

Therefore, the remaining resource supply amount set in the "new pattern" is set as the resource supply amount for the 9th mission, and an attempt is made to schedule the mission with the 9th priority order. What is the source of knowledge?

If scheduling for all missions has been completed, a scheduling success KS is issued.

As described above, according to the present invention, the possible time slot calculation KS for executing mission scheduling can be made common to all resource sources, and also made common to all missions.

(E) Bank Track KS When the bank trunk KS is executed in the possible time slot calculation KS and there is a schedulable time slot, if there is a "candidate time" for the mission of the plan node pointed to by the global variable area.

Since there are schedule solution candidates for the mission that have not been tried, a'lJ issues a time determination MS in order to try them out. Also, if a "candidate time" does not exist, it means that the mission could not be scheduled even if all solution candidates for that mission were tried, and therefore the scheduling of the previous mission must be retried. ), it is the knowledge source for resetting the global variable area to the plan node pointed to by the previous plan link of the plan node it points to and entering the backtrunk KS again. On the other hand, at this time, if even the previous mission is gone, it means that all the techniques of the search tree that were generated heuristically have been searched, so a scheduling failure KS is issued.

In this way, by executing this knowledge source, the scheduling of a mission whose scheduling was not successful will be retried based on the principle of vertical search.

(to) Scheduling success KS When the scheduling of all missions is completed successfully, this knowledge source is executed and its schedule solution,
In other words, while informing the crew of the experiment start time for all missions, according to the evaluation formula shown in Figure 15,
The evaluation value of the degree of concentration or degree of dispersion of the solution is calculated and notified to the crew. Furthermore, if requested, we may start searching for alternative solutions.

Bank track KS is issued.

(g) Scheduling failure KS This knowledge source is activated when no solution is found.
If scheduling fails or if all alternative solutions are exhausted, the process is terminated by informing the crew of this fact.

In this way, in the mission scheduling device equipped with the resource available time slot calculation device of the present invention, the inference engine 21 determines the order of the missions to be scheduled according to the priority order determined by the initial setting KS, and The target missions will be scheduled in the order of scheduling times determined by the possible time slot calculation KS.

Note that the blackboard used in Figure 5 can also be realized with a frame structure, and on the other hand, the resource frame and mission frame have been explained using the semantic network of the frame structure, but they are not limited to this, and they can also be realized using object-oriented It is also possible to express it by other semantic networks of types. Furthermore, the present invention is not limited to JEM, but can also exhibit similar effects to experimental equipment on the ground where resource supply capacity is limited.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible to calculate the time period in which resources can be supplied to a resource consuming device using a common method even for completely different types of resource sources. Therefore, the mission scheduling device equipped with the resource available time slot calculation device of the present invention can be configured as an extremely practical device.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a diagram explaining the principle of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a system configuration diagram of the present invention. FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram of a resource frame. FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of the Mitsushicon frame. FIG. 5 is a block diagram of the blackboard of the present invention. FIG. 6 is a knowledge source transition diagram of the present invention. FIG. 7 is a flowchart for determining a schedulable time slot. FIG. 8 is an explanatory diagram of the maximum included rectangle of the resource consumption pattern. FIG. 9 is an explanatory diagram of the maximum included rectangle of the resource supply pattern. FIG. 10 is an explanatory diagram of scheduling possible time periods. FIG. 11 is a flowchart when consuming multiple resources. FIG. 12 is an explanatory diagram of scheduling constraints. FIG. 13 is a conceptual diagram of the operation of the scheduling system. FIG. 14 is an explanatory diagram of combinatorial explosion. FIG. 15 is an explanatory diagram of scheduling evaluation values. In the figure, 1 is supply pattern storage means, 2 is consumption pattern storage means, and 3 is maximum included quadrangle decomposition means. 4 is a decomposable rectangle possible time zone calculation means, and 5 is a common time zone calculation means.

Claims (1)

[Claims] A resource comprising a resource source with a limited resource supply capacity and a resource consuming device that consumes resources from this resource source, and for calculating a time period during which resources can be supplied to the resource consuming device. The available supply time slot calculation device includes a supply pattern storage means (1) that stores resource supply amount information of a resource source expressed in the form of a function that changes stepwise with respect to time, and resource consumption amount information of a resource consumption device. consumption pattern storage means (2) that represents and stores the information in the form of a function that changes stepwise with respect to time, and the resource supply amount information of the supply pattern storage means (1) and the consumption pattern storage means ( Maximum included rectangle decomposition means (3) that decomposes the resource consumption information of 2) into maximum included rectangles, and this maximum included rectangle decomposition means (3)
a decomposition rectangle possible time period calculation means (4) for calculating, for all combinations of decomposition rectangles, a time period in which the decomposition rectangle of the resource consumption information decomposed by is included in the decomposition rectangle of the resource supply amount information; Common time zone calculation means (5) that calculates the time zone of the common part of the time zones found by the decomposable rectangle possible time zone calculation means (4);
), thereby calculating a time slot in which resources can be supplied to a resource consuming device.