CML: A Meta-Interpreter for Manufacturing

Abstract

A new computer language for manufacturing is being used to link complex systems of equipment whose components are supplied by multiple vendors. The Cell Management Language (CML) combines computational tools from rule-based data systems, object-oriented languages, and new tools that facilitate language processing. These language tools, combined with rule processing, make it convenient to build new interpreters for interfacing and understanding a range of computer and natural languages ; hence, CML is being used primarily to define other languages in an interpretive environment, that is, as a meta-interpreter. For example, in CML it is quite easy to build an interpreter for machine tool languages that can understand and generate new part programs. Once interpreters for different machine and human languages have been constructed, they can be linked together into a system of interpreters. These interpreters can be used to make intelligent decisions for systemwide action planning and diagnostic error recovery. CML is being used in the factory environment to make turbine blade performs and has proven to greatly simplify the task of building complex control systems.