A simulation test-bed to evaluate multi-agent control of manufacturing systems

Current research in the area of manufacturing planning and control has moved away from traditional centralized solutions towards distributed architectures that range from hierarchical to heterarchical. Between these two extremes of the control architecture spectrum lies the holonic manufacturing systems paradigm, where partial dynamic hierarchies of agents cooperate to meet global system objectives in the face of disturbances. This paper describes a simulation test bed for the evaluation of a distributed multi-agent control architecture for holonic manufacturing systems that integrates discrete-event simulation software into its design to allow the control architecture to be evaluated with a variety of emulated manufacturing systems.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2000
• Where: WSC
• Authors: Robert W. Brennan, William O
• Keywords: Control Architecture, Control Architecture Spectrum, Holonic Manufacturing Systems, Modeling And Simulation, WSC 2000