Multi-agent Mediator architecture for distributed manufacturing

The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 2005

Global competition, shorter lead times and customer demands for increasing product variety have collectively forced the manufacturing enterprises to rapidly develop and introduce new products to obtain quick return on their investments. The variations in today's manufacturing scenario are directly driven by the requirements for a product's price, quality, delivery performance, customer choices, etc. As a consequence, adaptability, reflexivity and responsiveness are a common denominator for judging the competitive advantage of the manufacturing firms. The inclusion of these characteristics entices the implementation of the concepts of distributed artificial intelligence (DAI) and information-based manufacturing. Thus a synergized use of agent-based manufacturing (derived from DAI) and supporting information architecture is well suited in the contemporary manufacturing arena for dealing with variations and uncertainties. In this paper, a conceptual infrastructure for information-based control architecture is discussed and special emphasis is put on multi-level coordination .

2006 World Automation Congress, 2006

Agent-based technology provides a natural way to design and implement efficient manufacturing environments. In this paper we emphasize features of state-of the art manufacturing systems. Furthermore we present fundamentals of agent based systems and an agent-based framework for the coordination and integration of manufacturing systems. It models each stage or process as an autonomous agent. Each agent is a software entity that has a set of protocols which govern the operations of the manufacturing entity, a knowledge base, an inference mechanism and an explicit model of the problem to solve. The protocols specify what action an agent will take based on its local state and the messages received from other agents.

International Journal of Production Research, 1999

Global competition and rapidly changing customer requirements are forcing major changes in the production styles and configuration of manufacturing organizations. Traditional centralised manufacturing systems are not able to meet such requirements. This paper proposes an agent-based approach for dynamically creating and managing agent communities in such widely distributed and ever-changing manufacturing environments. After reviewing the research literature, an adaptive multi-agent manufacturing system architecture called MetaMorph is presented and its main features are described. Such architecture facilitates multi-agent coordination by minimising communication and processing overheads. Adaptation is facilitated through organizational structural change and two learning mechanisms: learning from past experiences and learning future agent interactions by simulating future dynamic, emergent behaviours. The MetaMorph architecture also addresses other specific requirements for next generation manufacturing systems, including scalability, reliability, stability, maintainability, flexibility, real-time planning and scheduling, standardised communication, fault tolerance, and security. The proposed architecture is implemented as a multi-agent virtual manufacturing system, in simulation form, which incorporates heterogeneous manufacturing agents within different agent-based shop floors or factories. The experimental results have shown the potential of the agent-based approach for advanced manufacturing systems.

Proceedings of the Practical Application of …, 1998

Manufacturing enterprises are now moving towards open architectures for integrating their activities with those of their suppliers, customers and partners within wide supply chain networks. Agent-based technology provides a natural way to design and implement such environments. This paper presents an agent-based manufacturing enterprise infrastructure. After a brief review of recent advancements in this domain, we describe the main features of the proposed infrastructure and the functions of its components. A machine-centered dynamic scheduling/rescheduling mechanism is then detailed and a prototype implementation is presented.

Procedia Engineering, 2014

Current technology and especially Artificial Intelligence effectively increase productivity and take cost out of operations in the Manufacturing sector. One of the main representatives of information technology in the industrial applications are agents. This paper suggests a way to a) categorize multi-agent systems according to the coordination mode among agents and b) classify agents that take action on them, depending on their functions It examines the main approaches of multi-agent architectures, according to their coordination way. The main coordination types are: a) centralized multi-agent coordination (or coordinator agents), in which one central agent undertakes the collection of partial plans from agents, combines them in a plan and solves possible conflicts and b) decentralized multi-agent coordination (or autonomous agents), in which agents are not controlled by a central agent although they communicate with each other for the creation of their plans and the solution of possible arguments. Although there are several aspects that we can consider in order to classify CAD, CAPP and CAM multi-agent systems, this review develops a classification scheme, based on interaction characteristics.

Advances in Networked Enterprises, 2000

This paper focuses on the discussions of innovative Multi-Agent approach to advanced real time control for flexible manufacturing systems. The architecture is based on the paradigm of Distributed Intelligence and Multi-Agent systems. This Multi-Agent prototype system involves the following functions: Scheduling, dispatching, monitoring and error handling. A new negotiation protocol for manufacturing system is also presented in this paper. The purpose of this protocol is to dynamically assign operations to the resources of the Manufacturing System in order to accomplish the proposed tasks. This protocol is able to deal with exceptions.

2001

There has been a large and rapid evolution in terns of the paradigms and technologies to support the development of distributed manufacturing systems and real-time applications. This paper starts with a survey of the main proposals in the area based on the experience gained by the authors in various fields pertaining to manufacturing device modelling, control and supervision, industrial messaging, production management and reengineering methodology. The rational for a multi-agent approach is discussed as the available technologies to support the development of agent-based applications are summarised. Finally an implementation of controlling agents in a flexible manufacturing system is described and discussed.

Applied Artificial Intelligence, 1999

The production management system used by most manufacturers today is comprised of disconnected planning and execution processes, and lacks the support for interoperability and collaboration needed for enterprise-wide integration. This situation often prevents the manufacturer from fully exploring market opportunities in a timely fashion. To address this problem, we are exploring an agent-based approach to intelligent enterprise integration. In this approach, a set of agents with specialized expertise can be quickly assembled to help with the gathering of relevant information and knowledge, to cooperate with each other and with other parts of the production management system and humans to arrive at timely decisions in dealing with various enterprise scenarios. The proposed multi-agent system, including its architecture and implementation, are presented and demonstrated through an example integration scenario involving real planning and execution software systems.

2001

The paper focuses on the application of a multi-agent system for a management process. The presented system is working on the structure of graph, where nodes represent decision modules and edges -technological processes. Kinds of agents working in such environment are presented and an overview of the interaction protocols which can be used in such a system is given.

Advances on P2P, parallel, Grid, Cloud and Internet Computing, 2019

When it comes to address challenges in the area of distributed and parallel computing, Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) are emerging as a key architecture. Characterized as a collection of autonomous software (agents) which are able to cooperate in a distributed environment, MAS-based applications have proven capabilities when using cognitive processes, reasoning and knowledge representation in order to develop functionality related to complex and dynamic scenarios where the contribution of a single agent is computationally limited. In this paper, we propose an industrial platform which fully supports the development, deployment and maintenance cycle of MAS-based applications.