Applied Mathematical Modelling 37 (2013) 4842–4859

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Applied Mathematical Modelling

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apm

Modeling, analysis and performance evaluation for fault diagnosis

and Fault Tolerant Control in bottle-filling plant modeled
using Hybrid Petri nets
K. Renganathan, Vidhyacharan Bhaskar ⇑
Electronics and Communication Engineering, SRM University, Kattankulathur, Chennai 603203, Tamilnadu, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this paper, an approach to achieve fault diagnosis and Fault Tolerant Control in a typical
Received 12 February 2012 bottle-filling plant using event based techniques is discussed. For this purpose, the plant is
Received in revised form 9 June 2012 modeled using Hybrid Petri nets which enable study and analysis with regard to the work-
Accepted 6 July 2012
ing of the plant. Once effective modeling is done based on two different case studies con-
Available online 7 September 2012
sidered, new algorithms are proposed to achieve fault diagnosis and Fault Tolerant Control
on the models developed. Finally, performance measures with regard to the models pro-
Keywords:
posed are evaluated to check the correctness of the models developed. Both analytical
Hybrid Petri nets
Fault diagnosis
and numerical results are obtained which are highly useful to understand plant behavior.
Fault Tolerant Control Ó 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Performance evaluation
Event based techniques
Qualitative analysis

1. Introduction

Modern technological systems rely on sophisticated control systems to meet improved performance and safety require-
ments. A conventional feedback control design for a complex system may result in an unsatisfactory performance, or even
instability, in the event of malfunctions in actuators, sensors or other system components. To overcome such weaknesses,
new approaches to control system design have been developed in order to tolerate component malfunctions while maintain-
ing desirable stability and performance properties. This is particularly important for safety–critical systems, such as aircrafts,
spacecrafts, nuclear power plants, and chemical plants processing hazardous materials. In such systems, the consequences of
a minor fault in a system component can be catastrophic. Therefore, the demand on reliability, safety and fault tolerance is
generally high. It is necessary to design control systems which are capable of tolerating potential faults in these systems in
order to improve reliability and availability while providing a desirable performance. These types of control systems are of-
ten known as Fault-Tolerant Control Systems (FTCS). More precisely, FTCS are control systems which possess the ability to
accommodate component failures automatically. They are capable of maintaining overall system stability and acceptable
performance in the event of such failures. In other words, closed-loop control systems which can tolerate component mal-
functions, while maintaining desirable performance and stability properties are said to be a FTCS.
Over the last three decades, the growing demand for safety, reliability, maintainability, and survivability in technical sys-
tems has drawn significant research in Fault Detection and Diagnosis (FDD). Such efforts have led to the development of
many FDD techniques, for example, survey papers discussed by Dash and Venkatasubramanian [1], Dochain et al. [2], Frank

⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: meetvidhyacharan@yahoo.com (V. Bhaskar).

0307-904X/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apm.2012.07.059
 K. Renganathan, V. Bhaskar / Applied Mathematical Modelling 37 (2013) 4842–4859 4843

et al. [3], Isermann et al. [4], Zhong et al. [5], and books by Chiang et al. [6], Gustafsson [7], Isermann [8], Patton et al. [9],
Simani et al. [10], Vachtsevanos et al. [11] and Witczak [12]. In Literature, Fault Detection and Isolation (FDI) or Fault Detec-
tion and Identification (again, FDI) [13] are often used. In FTCS designs, fault identification is important; therefore FDI is
mainly used in this paper to highlight the requirement of fault identification.
As is well-known, an FDI scheme has three tasks: (1) fault detection indicates that something is wrong in the system, i.e.,
the occurrence of a fault and the time of fault occurrence; (2) fault isolation determines the location and type of the fault
(which component has failed); and (3) fault identification determines the magnitude (size) of the fault. Fault isolation
and identification are usually referred to as fault diagnosis in Literature by Isermann in [14]. Based on the above classifica-
tion, FDI often represents functions including both fault detection and identification, or simply called fault diagnosis.
The existing FDI approaches can be generally classified into two categories: (1) model-based and (2) data-based (model-
free) schemes; these two schemes can further be classified as quantitative and qualitative approaches. Essentially, a quan-
titative model-based FDI scheme utilizes a mathematical model (often known as analytical redundancy) to carry out FDI in
real-time. Four most commonly used techniques are based on (1) state estimation; (2) parameter estimation; (3) parity
space; and (4) combination of the first three. Based on the classification by Venkatasubramanian et al. in [15], a refined clas-
sification of the existing FDI approaches are provided. Since most control techniques are model-based, fault tolerant control-
lers need to be designed based on the mathematical model of the system being analyzed, particularly the post-fault model of
the system.
The objective of quantitative methods [16] is to develop and employ mathematical models, theories and/or hypotheses
pertaining to the particular phenomenon. The process of measurement is central to quantitative research, because it pro-
vides the fundamental connection between empirical observation and mathematical expression of quantitative relation-
ships. Here, the work is based on qualitative methods [17]. Qualitative approach aims to gather an in-depth
understanding of human behavior and the reasons that govern such behavior. Qualitative methods, thus investigate why
and how of decision making, not just what, where, and when. Hence, smaller but focused samples are enough, rather than
large samples as in the case of quantitative methods.
The real-time application considered for study in this paper is the bottle-filling plant (BFP). The main purpose to consider
BFP for study in this paper is because of the fact that any BFP resembles Hybrid Dynamic Systems (HDSs) [18]. As discussed
earlier in [19], HDSs are one that exhibits both continuous and discrete dynamic behavior, i.e., a system that can both flow
(described by a differential equation to explain the state changes that occur in the system) and jump (described by a differ-
ence equation or control graph to explain the control variables that operates the system). Often, the term HDSs is used, to
distinguish over hybrid systems, such as those that combine neural nets and fuzzy logic, electrical and mechanical drivelines.
HDSs have the benefit of encompassing a larger class of systems within its structure, allowing more flexibility in modeling
dynamic phenomena.
In general, the state of a hybrid system is defined by the values of the continuous variables and a discrete control mode.
The state changes either continuously according to a flow condition, or discretely according to a control graph. Continuous
flow is permitted as long as the so-called invariants hold; a property which does not vary when the continuous transitions of
the Hybrid Petri net structure are fired. Hence, invariants enable certain properties of the reachable markings and firable
transitions to be characterized, irrespective of the evolution of markings. Similarly, discrete transitions can occur as soon
as the given jump conditions are satisfied. Discrete transition may be associated with events. HDSs thus can be used to eval-
uate the functioning of a plant more effectively. Hence, for the above reasons, modeling and analysis of a BFP using Hybrid
Petri nets is obtained to achieve Fault Diagnosis and Identification (FDI) and Fault Tolerant Control (FTC).
The paper is divided into the following sections: Section 2 discusses the details with respect to the operations and var-
ious processes of the bottle-filling plant considered for study. Section 3 covers the modeling and analysis with respect to
the bottle-filling plant. Section 4 presents the details of the proposed algorithm to achieve fault diagnosis and fault toler-
ance control in the models developed. The details of the results obtained and the evaluation procedures for model vali-
dation and checking are discussed in Section 5. Conclusions and future scope with regard to the paper are discussed in
Section 6.

2. Process description

BFP [20] considered here as shown in Fig. 1 includes both continuous processes and discrete processes.

 Discrete processes: The discrete processes are those which involve a jump of control from one part to another of a
system. A bottle-filling system consists of various discrete processes, the systematic movement (one-by-one) of
bottles, the detection of sensor, opening and closing of valves for filling, counting of bottles, collection and packag-
ing of bottles.
 Continuous processes: The continuous process is the filling of the bottle from the reservoir. Although the flow of
liquid from the reservoir to the bottle is not continuous, it is considered to be so through ‘‘Fluidification’’.
Through fluidification, the modeling of the bottle-filling system as a Hybrid Petri net model becomes easier.
Due to these reasons, bottle-filling systems are considered to be HDSs. The various parts of the BFP which have
been taken into consideration are: (1) Switch, (2) Conveyor system, (3) IR sensor, and (4) Reservoir tanks.
4844 K. Renganathan, V. Bhaskar / Applied Mathematical Modelling 37 (2013) 4842–4859

Fig. 1. Overview of a bottle-filling process plant.

 Conveyor system: A conveyor system is a common piece of mechanical handling equipment that moves materials
from one location to another. Conveyors are especially useful in applications involving transportation of heavy or
bulky materials. Conveyor systems allow quick and efficient transportation for a wide variety of materials which
make them very popular in material handling and packaging industries. Many kinds of conveyer systems are avail-
able, and are used according to the various needs of different industries. Here, a normal conveyor system is consid-
ered to transport bottles in the packaging industry. The conveyor system is controlled through a conveyor motor,
and the control of the motor helps moving the conveyor belt. Bottles are placed over the conveyor at regular inter-
vals and according to bottle-filling, the conveyor automatically moves to bring the next bottle into position once a
bottle gets filled.
 IR sensor: Infra-red (IR) sensors are generally used for object detection and not for distance measurement. The basic
idea is to send infra-red light through IR-LEDs, which is then reflected by any object in front of the sensor. In the
system shown in Fig. 1, IR sensor is considered to sense the presence of a bottle in the conveyor system before bot-
tle-filling takes place.
 Reservoir tanks: The reservoir tanks are used to give a constant supply of liquid to the filling system. There are res-
ervoir systems with level monitoring and automatic refilling. The reservoir system considered here fills itself auto-
matically when the amount of liquid drained becomes large.

3. Modeling and analysis of process

Here, in this paper, two different prototypes of BFP have been modeled and analysed. The first one is a multiple BFP, and
the second one is ratio filling BFP. The details of modeling and analysis of both are explained separately in the following
subsections.

3.1. Modeling and analysis of multiple BFP

The Petri net model for multiple BFP consists of a Hybrid Petri net structure [21], which has five discrete places and three
continuous places as shown in Fig. 2a. The three continuous places signify reservoir and filling nozzles, and the two contin-
uous transitions with maximal speed signify the valves. The discrete places signify the logic with which the system should
work. The movement of token in discrete places resembles the flow of logic in the system. Place, P1, is analogous to the main
switch of the bottle-filling system. The conveyor motor is denoted by a discrete place, P2. The motor has bottles present on
the top of it, and rotates with the capacity load. Place, P3, is analogous to the IR sensor; the IR sensor is used to find whether
the bottle is in position or not. Places, P6 and P7, form a loop for continuous bottle-filling. Places, P16 and P17, acts as bottle
count and the place, P14, act as a packing unit, where every two bottles are packed together. A token in each of the places
 K. Renganathan, V. Bhaskar / Applied Mathematical Modelling 37 (2013) 4842–4859 4845

Fig. 2a. Equivalent Hybrid Petri net model developed for the process shown in Fig. 1.

means that the corresponding condition becomes true. The equivalent Petri net model is shown in Fig. 2a. Table 1 shows
corresponding places and their corresponding logic with respect to the developed model.
The algorithm is explained as follows:

 Main switch is ON, i.e., there is presence of a token, and the conveyor motor starts to run and the bottles present on top
of them appear at the filling position in both the parallel modules.
 Bottle is detected when IR sensor senses the presence of a bottle and then subsequently, the conveyor motor stops.
 Filling system is initiated and the valves of the 30 l as well as 40 l capacities are opened, which means liquid flows from
the reservoir to the bottles.
 Delay is provided for the operation of bottle-filling completely.
 Bottle count is updated for both the systems as soon as the 30 l and 40 l bottles are filled.
 When bottle gets filled, it arrives at the collection unit where two bottles gets collected, and finally appears at pack-
aging unit, i.e., when two tokens are collected in place, the bottles are sent to a carton for packaging.
 By the time 40 l bottle is filled twice, the 30 l bottle will be filled approximately 3 times, and hence the reservoir is
refilled as soon as the two tokens are present in the bottle collection place.

Fig. 2b shows the response of the bottle-filling with respect to time, i.e., the response of the places, P4 and P5. The graphs
as shown in Fig. 2b indicate bottle-filling as well as bottle counts that are tracked at every instant of time.

3.2. Modeling and analysis of ratio based BFP

Apart from the previous model as discussed in Section 3.1, a ratio based BFP is designed, modeled and analyzed through a
Hybrid Petri net structure and explained in detail in this section. Here, the Petri net model consists of four continuous places
and nine discrete places as shown in Fig. 2c.
4846 K. Renganathan, V. Bhaskar / Applied Mathematical Modelling 37 (2013) 4842–4859

Table 1
Places and transitions with their corresponding logic.

Place/transition Logic details

P1, P11 The system is switched ‘‘ON’’
P2, P10 The conveyor motor starts to run
P3, P9 The IR sensor senses the bottle
P6, P7, P12, P13 Bottle-filling start; valve open; delay
P16, P17 Bottle counter
P14 Bottle collection and packing
P15 Reservoir tank refill
P5 Reservoir tank
P4 30 l capacity bottle-filling
P8 40 l capacity bottle-filling
T1, T2, T3 Start/stop condition for motor, IR sensor and discrete control logic for bottle-filling
T4, T6 Discrete transitions for controlling operation of T5
T13, T14 Discrete transitions for controlling operation of T7
T8, T12 Checking conditions for 30 l and 40 l bottle counters
T5 Valve for 30 l bottle-filling
T7 Valve for 40 l bottle-filling
T15 Packing unit activation
T16 Refill for reservoir

Fig. 2b. Response of bottle-filling places.

Place, P1, indicates the ‘‘start/stop’’ switch. Place, P2, indicates the conveyor motor, Place, P3, is analogous to an IR sensor;
Places, P5 and P6, form a loop for continuous bottle-filling. This controls the opening and closing of valves, and thus controls
the ratio of the liquid that gets filled in the bottle. Continuous places, P4 and P9, are analogous to the reservoir of different
liquids that need to be mixed in a ratio. Places, P8 and P10, are analogous to bottle-filling that get filled according to the ratio
designed. A token in each of the places means that the corresponding condition is true. The continuous transitions fired at a
maximal speed signify the valves of the filling system.
Both systems are modeled through Constant Continuous Petri Net (CCPN) [22] which fire at a constant maximal speed
throughout the process. In the ratio BFP, designing of the speed for firing of continuous transitions is of utmost importance
as it decides the ratio of liquid to be mixed. In the considered model, the maximal speed is set in such a way that a ratio of 1:2
is obtained, i.e., for one unit of one liquid, two units of another liquid should be mixed together. The Petri net model of the
ratio based BFP is shown in Fig. 2c. Table 2 shows corresponding places and transitions and logic they signify.
The algorithm is explained as follows:

 Main switch is ON, i.e., there is the presence of a token and the conveyor motor starts to run, and the bottles present on
top of them appear at the filling position.
 Bottle is detected when IR sensor senses the presence of a bottle, and then the conveyor motor stops.
 K. Renganathan, V. Bhaskar / Applied Mathematical Modelling 37 (2013) 4842–4859 4847

Fig. 2c. Petri net model of the ratio-based BFP.

 Filling system is initiated and the valves of liquid A and liquid B are opened, which means the liquids A and B flow from
the reservoir to filling places according to the firing rates of the continuous transition which determine the ratio of the
liquid mixture.
 Delay is given for the purpose of maintaining proper ratio during mixing of two liquids.
 Once the required ratio is obtained, i.e., for one part of liquid A, two parts of liquid B are to be added, the bottle is sent
to a collecting unit.
 In that unit, when two tokens are collected in a place, the bottles are sent to a carton for packaging.

Fig. 2d shows the response of liquid A filling with respect to time, i.e., the response of the place, P8.
The response of the filling at place, P10, is shown in Fig. 2e. Here, place P10 refers to the filling of liquid B.
Fig. 2f shows another graph that displays the number of bottles filled with respect to time. The distinct peak at a partic-
ular time instant refers to the fact that a bottle is being filled at that time instant.

4. Proposed FDI and FTC

The proposed FDI and FTC incorporate fault diagnosis, fault tolerance along with fault isolation. As detailed earlier in the
system description, i.e. in Section 3, firstly, the faults are diagnosed and identified in the system. Once the faults are iden-
tified, it is checked whether the faults are tolerant. If they are tolerant, then the system runs normally. When the fault is
intolerable, then the redundant path is chosen and the process carries on without the system being halted. This is called fault
isolation. The block diagram shown in Fig. 3a illustrates the proposed FDI and FTC scheme.

 Optimized system model: The optimized system model refers to the model that is designed mathematically as well as
through Petri nets according to the requirements fulfilling the ideal conditions.
 Diagnoser model: The diagnoser model is one that is designed keeping in mind the various probable faults that might
occur in the system due to many factors such as prolonged running, friction, level violation, etc.
4848 K. Renganathan, V. Bhaskar / Applied Mathematical Modelling 37 (2013) 4842–4859

Table 2
Places and transitions with their corresponding logic for model shown in Fig. 4.

Place/transition Logic details

P1 The system is switched ‘‘ON’’
P2 The conveyor motor starts to run
P3 The IR sensor senses the bottle
P5, P6 Bottle-filling start; valve open; delay
P7, P11 Mixing of liquids
P12 Bottle-filling
P13 Bottle is collected and sent to packaging
P4, P9 Reservoir tanks of two different liquids
P8 Liquid A
P10 Liquid B
T1, T2, T3 Start/stop condition for motor, IR sensor and discrete control logic for bottle-filling
T4, T5 Discrete transitions for controlling operation of T6 and T8
T6, T8 Ratio adjustment
T7, T9, T10 Checking conditions for ratio controller operation
T10 Mixing of two liquids inside bottle
T11, T12 Packing unit activated

Fig. 2d. Response of bottle-filling at place, P8.

Fig. 2e. Response of bottle-filling at place, P10.

Fig. 2f. Number of bottles filled with respect to time at place, P12.

 Fault diagnosis: Once the ideal model and faulty models are designed, the next process is comparison of the ideal
model with the faulty model, and finding out reason for the faults to have occurred. The various faults are taken care
by applying the fault tolerance algorithm procedures.
 Fault tolerance: Fault tolerance is one of the important steps as it checks the extent of the fault, and prevents the sys-
tem from stalling due to minor faults, and through the algorithm, a threshold is set for the faults and minor faults that
do not cross the threshold do not affect the smooth functioning of the system. Only when the fault crosses the thresh-
old, further steps are taken.
 K. Renganathan, V. Bhaskar / Applied Mathematical Modelling 37 (2013) 4842–4859 4849

Fig. 3a. Block diagram of Fault Diagnosis and Identification (FDI) and Fault Tolerant Control (FTC).

START

Obtain the ideal condition matrix and

current condition incidence matrix of the
system and check for error

Check if Yes System is in

ideal marking – IDEAL
obtained marking working
condition
No

System is Faulty
Check whether in the fault in the system is
within the tolerant limit.

Check if the Yes Fault is

minimization
problem within the
L. q ≤ b is satisfied
tolerable
limit
No

Faults have exceeded the tolerant limit,

and hence isolate the faulty part of the
system.

STOP

Fig. 3b. Algorithm to achieve Fault Tolerant Control (FTC).

The controllability concept adopted to provide FTC in this paper is based on constraint information and transformation of
constraints based on fault data available. The constraints are categorized into many types, but the inequality constraint,
and more specifically, the constraint pertaining to the minimization problem is considered. In this paper, the constraints con-
taining marking vector elements only as discussed in [23] is considered.
4850 K. Renganathan, V. Bhaskar / Applied Mathematical Modelling 37 (2013) 4842–4859

Fig. 4. Example of fault isolation using HPSIM.

Fig. 5. Response of a faulty system.

For these types of constraints, it is assumed that the system considered should satisfy the relation:
X
r
m0i 6 k; ð1Þ
i¼1

where m0i is the marking comprising tokens in input places and k is an integer.
This means that the sum of the tokens in the faulty places identified using FDI should never exceed integer, k. This type of
constraint in inequality form can be made to become equality by introducing a slack variable, m0c , so that (1) becomes
 K. Renganathan, V. Bhaskar / Applied Mathematical Modelling 37 (2013) 4842–4859 4851

Fig. 6. Evolution graph for multiple BFP Petri net structure shown in Fig. 2.

X
r
m0i þ m0c ¼ k; ð2Þ
i¼1

where m0c is the marking comprising tokens in controller places.

It should be noted here that the constant, k, in (1) and (2) plays the important role in defining the tolerant limit for the
controller that should be taken into account when the Petri net is initially marked. The condition to be satisfied for fault tol-
erance of BFP is given as
L  q 6 b; ð3Þ
where L represents a nc  n integer matrix, b represents nc  1 integer vector, nc is the number of constraints, and q is the
marking vector of the Petri net.
Based on the condition above, the ideal condition for constraint matrix L and the marking vector q are estimated and gi-
ven as
0 1
  30  
1 0 0 B C 30
@ 60 A 6 : ð4Þ
0 0 1 40
140
4852 K. Renganathan, V. Bhaskar / Applied Mathematical Modelling 37 (2013) 4842–4859

Fig. 6. (continued)

It can be observed that if this condition is satisfied, the system is within the tolerable limit and runs normally. (The tol-
erable limit is that the product (L  q) should be within 30 l and 40 l, respectively, and if it exceeds the value, then the bottle
overflows, and the filling process is isolated).
The developed fault tolerance algorithm to achieve the condition as given by (4) is shown in Fig. 3b. Once fault tolerant
algorithm is developed, and the tolerance level of the fault is checked according to the degree of tolerance, the system de-
cides whether to tolerate the fault or isolate it from the main process for repair.

5. Results and discussions

As discussed in the earlier section, if the fault is not within tolerance limits, fault isolation is carried out. This process in-
volves designing a redundant path for the process to take in case of a conflict in the system. The design of the redundant path
has been done using a software called HPSIM [24] and this allows the faulty part to be isolated from the main system and the
rest of the process carries out as normal. The main advantage is that even though there is a fault, the system does not come to
a halt, but continues working. The design of the redundant path is shown by considering an example as shown in Fig. 4.
As observed in Fig. 4, there is a redundant path that is present for each flow control so that if any of the paths fails, then an
alternative path is taken and the system does not halt.
 K. Renganathan, V. Bhaskar / Applied Mathematical Modelling 37 (2013) 4842–4859 4853

Fig. 6. (continued)

Here in this paper, C programming has been used as a front end interface to identify the current system status. A program
has been developed which compares the ideal condition markings and the obtained markings of the bottle-filling system.
This program compares these two markings of the system, and it identifies the working condition of the system, and indi-
cates the user whether the bottle is filled correctly, or any fault is detected in the system. The erroneous system response is
the vital analyzing tool from which the occurrence of a fault is detected.
The faults that could possibly occur are:

 Overflow of the bottle due to conveyor not moving (place fault),

 Errors due to the improper functioning of the IR sensor, and
 Fault occurrence due to improper filling valve operation (transition fault).

The graphs in Fig. 5 show the response of a faulty system.

From Fig. 5, it can be observed that:

 Bottle overflow occurs as the marking cross 30, and is maintained within the threshold, i.e., 30 markings (litres).
 It is clear that when there is a fault in the system, the bottle fills up haphazardly.
4854 K. Renganathan, V. Bhaskar / Applied Mathematical Modelling 37 (2013) 4842–4859

Fig. 6. (continued)

Apart from graphical analysis, in this paper, mathematical analysis is also done and results are presented. As discussed
P4 P5 P8
earlier in Section 4, the ideal marking for the BFP process considered is given as , where capacity of
ð30 160 40Þ
bottle-A is 30 units, capacity of bottle-B is 40 units, P4 is the place analogous to bottle-filling in bottle-A, and P5 is analogous
to bottle-filling in bottle-B. Now, the condition for bottle overflow is given as
P4 P5 P8
Faulty marking ¼ ; ð5Þ
ð32 160 40Þ
where marking P4 indicates bottle overflow.
For partial bottle-filling, the normal and faulty markings are given as
P4 P5 P8
Normal marking ¼ ; ð6Þ
ð10 134 40Þ
and
P4 P5 P8
Faulty marking ¼ ; ð7Þ
ð10 134 36Þ
where marking P8 in (7) indicates partial filling of bottle-B.
Similarly, for bottle missing, the values of normal marking and faulty markings are given as
P1 P2 P3 P6 P7 P9 P10 P11 P12 P13 P14 P15
Normal marking ¼ ð8Þ
ð0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0Þ
and
P1 P2 P3 P6 P7 P9 P10 P11 P12 P13 P14 P15
Faulty marking ¼ ; ð9Þ
ð0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0Þ
 K. Renganathan, V. Bhaskar / Applied Mathematical Modelling 37 (2013) 4842–4859 4855

Fig. 7. Queue length performance index for constant function (a) Place P4 and (b) Place P8.

where marking P3 in (9) represents missing of bottle. The graph shown in Fig. 6 presents the evolution graph [25] with re-
spect to the multiple BFP as shown in Fig. 2a.
As discussed in [26], to check the correctness of the model developed, the model is considered to be a random process and
various distribution functions are fit for continuous transitions and the performance of the model is evaluated. Since, in this
paper the contribution is towards development and analysis of bottle-filling process, performance measures like queue
length is considered as the major parameter and analysis of queue length with respect to distribution functions, such as con-
stant, uniform, exponential and Weibull functions are done and results are obtained and shown in Figs. 7–10 for the multiple
BFP process as shown in Fig. 2a.
Fig. 7 shows queue length performance measure with respect to constant function for places P4 and P8. Similarly, Figs. 8–
10 show queue length performance measures with respect to places P4 and P8 for uniform, exponential and Weibull distri-
butions, respectively.
4856 K. Renganathan, V. Bhaskar / Applied Mathematical Modelling 37 (2013) 4842–4859

Fig. 8. Queue length performance index for uniform function (a) Place P4 and (b) Place P8.

As observed in Figs. 7 and 8, the nature of distribution in the graphs are constant and uniform for every bottle-filling in-
stant which depicts normal operations taking place in the bottle-filling process. Likewise, the graphs shown in Figs. 9 and 10
depict non-uniform and faulty nature during the bottle-filling operation. Hence, by appropriate selection of the distribution
function in the model, the details regarding normal and faulty behavior in the processes can be analysed. Similarly, numer-
ical results obtained for the distribution functions considered are shown in Table 3.
It can be observed from Table 3 that the queue length values for constant and uniform functions are almost equal in num-
ber as compared to the values obtained with respect to exponential and Weibull functions. Hence, the numerical results ob-
tained are highly useful in understanding the normal and faulty behavior with respect to the operations taking place in a
process.
 K. Renganathan, V. Bhaskar / Applied Mathematical Modelling 37 (2013) 4842–4859 4857

Fig. 9. Queue length performance index for exponential function (a) Place P4 and (b) Place P8.

6. Conclusions and future work

As explained through earlier sections, the main purpose of this paper is to achieve model based Fault Diagnosis and Iden-
tification (FDI), and to identify conditions for imparting Fault Tolerant Control (FTC) schemes on a typical bottle-filling pro-
cess using event based techniques. For this purpose, the considered process is modeled using Hybrid Petri nets under two
case studies such as multiple bottle-filling process and ratio-filling bottle-filling process respectively. Based on the models
developed, procedures to achieve FDI and FTC are devised along with the simulation results.
Once effective modeling is done, the performance of the models developed is evaluated by considering the process as a
random process and values for queue length performance index with respect to different distribution functions are obtained.
The graphical and numerical results obtained are highly useful in complete understanding of the behavior of the process un-
der normal and faulty conditions.
4858 K. Renganathan, V. Bhaskar / Applied Mathematical Modelling 37 (2013) 4842–4859

Fig. 10. Queue length performance index for Weibull function (a) Place P4 and (b) Place P8.

Table 3
Queue length Performance index values for places P4 and P8.

S. no Place name Queue length performance index values

Constant function Uniform function Exponential function Weibull function
1 P4 14.732 14.81 14.15 15.8
2 P8 20.04 19.83 20.47 18.97

Moreover, the results obtained in this paper are highly useful to check the correctness of the systems models developed.
With suitable improvements, various other qualitative based analysis of a Petri net model such as scheduling, reliability
analysis, safety analysis, HAzard and OPerability (HAZOP) analysis, etc. can be performed which form the future scope in re-
gard to the enhancement of this paper.
 K. Renganathan, V. Bhaskar / Applied Mathematical Modelling 37 (2013) 4842–4859 4859

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