In my model I have two seperate transporters (assembly and logistics) made by two seperated fleet blocks.
For moving the transporters I used blocks from the material handling library like seize- and move by Transporter. The transporters come from two seperate paths but as you can see they have to share one path starting at "counplingPoint"
My goal is to implement a switch control to get an alternate order of the transporters with the following sheme: logistics-assembly-logistics-assembly...
For that I created stopPoint1 and stopPoint2 where the control should be called and a global boolean varibale agvStop.
For a start I set the variable depending on case true or false when transporter enters or exits a delay block and also tried it with the hold block. Either I get an error or the alternate order is not working.
Related
This model simulates cars pulling up to pumps at a gas/petrol station. I have a custom car agent 'MyCar' that passes through an upstream stopline. At this stopline it calls the agent's function which checks the availability of the two pump stations in the roadNetwork in Main. This function returns a RoadNetworkConstant 'PASS_THROUGH_STOP_LINE' or 'STOP_BEFORE_STOP_LINE'.
I'm unable to pass this constant value back into the 'Stop line behavior' property in a CarMoveTo block (for a different stop line further downstream but before the car reaches the pumps) in Main even when I start typing the name of my agent 'MyCar'.
Is it possible to change the Stop Line Behavior dynamically? If so, is this a resonable approach? If not, what would you suggest?
You need to use 'car', not 'MyCar'. Check out the magic light bulb and how keywords work for you: https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.benjamin-schumann.com/blog/2016/2/4/the-magic-lightbulb-and-how-it-can-help-your-anylogic-modelling&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwiuz-ytq9D8AhWsSvEDHZccDTUQFnoECAkQAg&usg=AOvVaw3XapUwKyi_Bi9_2JjGrN0b
In my model I am transporting (path guided) several types of products (motors) by an agv trough a manufacturing line with 27 cycles. It´s a flowing manufacturing line. That means the product gets manufactured while the agv is constantly running.
To model that I created an agent population called "motors" with parameter "axelType" (string) which is loaded from column "axel_type" in database "manufacturing_sequence" (local excelsheet) and is placed on Main.
Each motor is placed on an transporter "agvAssembly" (in Flowchart as: Transporter) and runs from node "locationCycle1" all the way to "locationCycle27".
Now I want to change the transporters speed at each of the 27 cycle nodes dependent on the currently loaded motor. To do that I got another database called "speeds_axel" which includes all the needed speeds for the cycles and respective parameter name for axelType (column axel_type).
So now, when the transporter enters a node I have to check first the nodes name. Than I want to read out the parameter "axelType" of the currently in that node entered agent "Motor" and search in the database for the respective speed.
In the block "transporter Fleet" - "On enter node:" I wrote as an example for cycle 1 the following:
if (node == locationCycle1) {
unit.setMaximumSpeed(
selectFrom(speeds_axel)
.where(speeds_axel.axel_type.eq(motor.axelType))
.firstResult(false, speeds_axel.cycle1)/60.0,MPS);
}
When running the model I get the following error:
"motor cannot be resolved to a variable"
(location: TransporterFleet)
I think that error accures because my approach doesn't specify which motor I mean. How can I clarify to AnyLogic that I always mean the current motor which enters the node?
I need something like this:
if (node == locationCycle1) {
unit.setMaximumSpeed(
selectFrom(speeds_axel)
.where(speeds_axel.axel_type.eq("get motor which is currently in locationCycle1".axelType))
.firstResult(false, speeds_axel.cycle1)/60.0,MPS);
}
the biggest problem in your model is that you don't follow conventions. An agent type should be named with an uppercase first letter
Why is this important? Because you want to make the difference between Motor, motor, and motors
Motor is the class (or Agent Type)
motor is an instance of that class (or agent type)
motors is a population.
Since you don't follow this convention, you make mistakes of this kind since motor is a class
in your case when you do motor.cycle1
if you followed the conventions, you would be doing
Motor.cycle1 (which is obvioulsy wrong)
Note that Motor is the Agent Type name, and what you really want is to know for a particular motor what the value of cycle1 is
The first thing you need to do with this model, is get back to using the conventions, and this will probably solve this problem and many problems in the future.
Just because you have a population called motors (which the agents within your flow 'come from' --- though it looks like they don't actually; see later), this does not mean that you can 'magically' refer to the current agent via the singular form motor at any point in the code. (And, similarly, your agent type being Motor does not mean you can use the lower-case form to refer to 'the current one'.)
In Transporter Fleet block "On enter node" actions, you refer to the current transporter via the unit keyword; see the help page. The motor is not the transporter; it's the thing being transported.
So, just use the "On exit" (or, better, "On at exit") actions of your MoveByTransporter blocks (which trigger on arrival at the destination node), where you can refer to the current motor (the agent in the flow) via the agent keyword; again, see the block help.
But, from a quick glance, there appear to be a few important changes/simplifications you should also make (though hard to definitively tell without details of all your code):
You are using a Source block to add agents (motors) to the flow when you have already created the motors in your population. You should be using an Enter block instead to add the (already-existing) Motor agents to the flow at the appropriate time (triggered by code: I imagine you want one to start at model start time, requiring code in Main's "On startup" action, and then others added either at certain simulation times or when earlier motors reach a certain stage in the process...). If your population was actually just for 'templates' of data for each motor axle type (and you would then potentially create multiple instances of motors for a given axle type) then your current logic might make sense, but your screenshot of your manufacturing_sequence table makes clear that isn't the case. (If you did go that route, you would want to rename your population so that its purpose was clear.)
It looks like you have a 'looping' process (with the same process behaviour for all your in-sequence nodes), so you should look to make your process generic with an explicit loop (so you don't have near-copies of blocks for every node in your sequence). There is a fair amount of detail in terms of how you do this but roughly:
Track the node the motor is currently in (or its sequence number) via a variable in the Motor agent.
Use a collection (List) which contains the nodes-in-order to determine where it has to go to next.
Your process would have a MoveByTransporter --> Delay --> SelectOutput sequence (plus TimeMeasureStart/End if you're using them), where SelectOutput loops back to the MoveByTransporter if the motor is not yet at the last node.
I'm wondering whether it is possible to change a block parameter in Simulink (or the value of one saved as a variable) using a different block to enable conditional execution. What I would like to do is have a certain block parameter (in this case, Counter) run during the simulation with an initial value, and have it change to a different value if a certain condition is satisfied.
Ultimately, what I would like to get out of this is to get a Counter block to stop running upon the satisfaction of that condition.
I'm pretty new to Simulink, but I'll detail some of the stuff I've tried so far:
Dashboard switches (Slider, Knob etc.) - I know they're used to
change tunable parameters of blocks, but they cannot be linked to
other blocked and can be only be controlled manually.
Matlab Function block - didn't seem to work, I'm obviously missing something.
Is it maybe possible to disable a certain block/link when that condition is met? That would be a straight forward approach, but I'm not sure it can be implemented in Simulink. Any help would be appreciated!
So to meet your ultimate goal have you considered to place your counter in an enabled subsytem?
Whenever the requirements are met to stop the counter you simply disable the subsystem and the counter will stop.
On the output port of that enabled subsystem you will have the options to preserve the last value or reset it to certain one.
I have an airlock (small room called AL_2216) between 2 areas. The airlock has many different agent types passing through it (cart, product, operator, etc). There are queuing areas on either side of the airlock.
Because the space is small, I built a short flowchart that has a queue and restricted area blocks that all agents must pass through when going through this space. If the restricted area's capacity is full, the agents wait in either the InsideQueueArea or OutsideQueueArea depending on the direction they're going.
I send agents via Exit and Enter blocks to this flowchart and it works great on the top portion of the flowchart.
BUT if I try to use an Enter or Exit block in the prepare flowchart, I get this error:
I tried using a custom block instead of Enter and Exit blocks, but that creates a new instance of the code each time and the restrictions don't work together across the multiple custom blocks.
This airlock is just one of many in my model. Without referring to the same code, I'll have multiple copies that need to refer to each other's restricted areas and the flowcharts become huge and complicated. Is there a way to get around this?
EDIT:
I'm not sure what to do with these ports. They have no properties that do anything:
EDIT2:
Here's a file to see the behavior - Model2.zip
The Prepared flowchart portion is set to "ignore" so the code will run. You can see the operators and the carts passing through AL_2216 with only 2 being allowed at a time. If you uncheck "ignore" for the prepare flowchart, the error will trigger.
AnyLogic sent the right answer!!
So I was asking Anylogic a different question and they recognized my name from this post! They sent a fix to me and it works exactly the way it should! The exception error message I was getting "out: 0 isn't supported for..." made me think the exit/enter blocks were not supported in perparation flowcharts.
But actually, the seizeCart block didn't know where to start the prep flowchart because it wasn't directly connected to the resource task start block. A quick setting change under the Advanced section of the seizeCart block defining which resource task start block to start at did the trick! Here's the email from AnyLogic:
-The error text and documentation are not sufficient for understanding this (the error text is confusing), I suppose it is obsolete error text. We will rectify the description;
-Under the question there is a more generic discussion which seems to be unrelated to the initial problem. Please let me know if I miss something or if your model does not work as you expect even after adjustment of seizeCart block property.
I think you should replace the Enter and Exit blocks that lead to the bottom input of your seizeCart Seize block with simple Port objects (from the Agent palette).
As per the help for Seize:
So it wants a direct link to a ResourceTaskStart flow and your Enter/Exit combinations might be ... not "direct" enough... Try it.
So here's what I ended up doing. It's the best I could come up with that could be easily replicated for lots of airlocks.
I've added a wait block (dummyThruAL_2216) to my Product flowchart prior to seizing the cart. This wait block injects a new Agent into sourceDummy at the cartHome node. The dummy then seizes a cart and moves through the airlock and it's restriction. Upon exiting the restriction, I check what type of agent and direct the agent to the correct exit block. The dummy agent and cart move to the Product where the dummy agent releases the cart and sinks. The sink frees the wait block and the Product seizes the cart that is right next to it and continues on it's journey.
It's an easy copy/paste to add more airlocks. Not as nice as my original, but what are you going to do... Thanks for everyone's help and suggestions.
As others have said, there are (not really documented) restrictions on what blocks you can use in preparation and wrap-up flowcharts, which mean what you're attempting won't work.
As you say, it's important to keep a single 'instance' of the airlock flow so that the restrictions (queue and restricted area) are 'global' when this represents the same physical airlock. (Otherwise a repeated custom block is precisely what you should use for each different physical airlock.)
Your best option (and assuming you needed to attach the Cart resource to the Product) is probably to
Add dummy agents (via Source block inject calls) to a separate mini-process that represents your resource preparation requirement (but now not attached to the Seize block).
Replace the Seize in your main process with a Seize-Wait-Release-Seize combination:
The Seize block seizes the cart as normal (without moving or attaching it; no 'Send seized resources' or 'Attach seized resources' options) and then injects an agent into your mini-process (which can use Exit and Enter blocks to use the airlock sub-process). This agent represents the seized resource agent (Cart) and thus should start where it starts and be animated so it looks like it. (You can make the actual Cart temporarily non-visible during this mini-process.)
When the agent reaches the end of the mini-process (at a Sink block), instantly move the related Cart to your node (use jumpTo), make it visible again and free the Product agent from the Wait block
Release the seized Cart and then immediately re-Seize it, but now attaching it (so the animation looks correct). If you use the Resource selection 'Nearest to the agent' option you should be guaranteed to seize the correct cart. (You can also use the 'Customise resource choice' option with some code to ensure that you absolutely always choose the same Cart.)
(It is simpler than the above if you don't care about having a correct animation, and you can use custom blocks to make this block combination reusable and thus not too clunky.)
Edit: A very similar alternative which also works (and is the basis for your own answer) is to have a dummy agent representing your Product in the sub-flow which seizes (and attaches) the actual Cart agent, leaving it at the Product's location to be immediately seized as above. This is slightly better since you don't have to worry about the visibility and 'jumping' of the real resource agent, plus you can move a Seize and a Release from the main flow (which now just has Wait-Seize) to the sub-flow (thus 'hiding them away').
For a project I'm trying to select the right output if a parameter of the created agent is true. The agent is created in the main but goes into a different agent for the selection of the output. If I use a select in the main and use the statement for the parameter as condition it works fine. Whenever it enters the agent and I use the same statement it gives an error (Description: product1 cannot be resolved or is not a field. Location: testCase5/Transport/selectOutput - SelectOutput).
I tried using different conditions like main.agent.product1 . Can't seem to solve the issue. I know that it has to do something with declaration probably but I'm clueless at the moment.
//for the condition that works if I put the selectOutput in the main
agent.product1
//for the condition in the agent I tried the same but didn't work. also tried
main.agent.product1 // Gives the same error but for (Description: agentcannot be resolved or is not a field.)
(Main)agent.product1
//And a few more
In AnyLogic each block of a project flow (regardless if from the process modeling library, the pedestrian library or another) has the type of Agent that is flowing through it defined in its properties. You can find this setting as Agent type in the block's properties under Advanced.
If you fail to set this correctly (meaning this setting equals the type of Agents you let flow through it), it will still flow through, BUT: you cannot access the specific properties of the Agent type.
That said, usually you do not even have to think about, because AnyLogic has an automatism there: The first block of your process flow, typically a Source-block or a Enter-block is the only block where you have to make the correct setting, all attached blocks get it then automatically!
However this does not work when:
You have separate flows (eg. you leave one flow through an Exit-block and enter another by an Enter). You'll manually have to put the correct setting also for the first block of the second process flow.
Your process flow is continued inside of another Agent/Custom Block, as in your example. AnyLogic doesnt realize the process flow inside your custom block is logically connected to the outside process flow in main. You have to specifiy manually again the Agent type flowing through in the first block of your process inside your Custom Block.