Jiří Lažanský

Application of the multi-agent approach in production planning and modelling

Abstract The paper describes an experimental multi-agent system developed for and aimed at a computer-supported project-oriented production planning. The system is based on a heterogeneous hierarchy of agents of three types that reflect the managerial structure of the manufacturing enterprise. To improve the system efficiency, a new formalism—called tri-base model—of the multi-agent internal communication/negotiation mechanism has been introduced. The tri-base model that has been tested in an industrial environment is treated in detail in the paper.

Improving cooperative behaviour in a multi-agent system

The paper briefly describes DISCIM — an environment for experiments in multi-agent systems characterized by peer-to-peer communication among all agents and including a super-agent watching the communication traffic within the system. There are identified some features of the agents and their community which seem to be decisive from the point of the system’s efficiency as well as the methods how to learn them from experimental data taken from the system’s history.

Application of the Multi-Agent Approach in Production Planning and Modelling

Abstract The paper describes an experimental multi-agent system developed for and aimed at a computer-supported project-oriented production planning. The system is based on a heterogeneous hierarchy of agents of three types that reflect the managerial structure of the manufacturing enterprise. To improve the systems efficiency, a new formalism - called tri-base model - of the multi-agent internal communication/negotiation mechanism has been introduced. The tri-base model, that has been tested in an industrial environment, is treated in far detail in the paper.

Production planning systems with AI philosophy

Abstract In this article we present our experience with the development of several systems for computer-aided production planning. The real life production planning tasks can be decomposed into two steps. The latter is the scheduling task, including resource allocation, which must conform to rules, created in the former step. They describe technological conditions that are specific for the manufacturing domain and the factory organization. Thus, the production plan may be viewed as a set of rules that may be considered as constraints for the scheduling task. We focus our analysis on the problem of how to specify these rules. We also show how these plans as manufacturing instruction sequences are structured for diverse production goals. A brief survey of the systems the authors have developed is given as well.

Experiments on Coupling Expert and Database Systems

The paper describes an extended rule-based expert system with the capability to invoke external programs and the the access to a set of database files. The necessity to integrate an expert system with database as well as with external programs (e. g. on-line sensor data input) has been recognized during real applications development. The particular solutions and experience even in simple MS-DOS environment are illustrated by examples.

Computers in Artificial Intelligence Education

SUMMARY Both the origin and development of artificial intelligence (AI) are connected with the origin and development of computers. Computers play a very important role in engineering education. AI influences such disciplines like CAD, CASE, CAE, and others. The specific experience concerning AI education at a technical university has been gathered in this paper. There is stressed need of good balance between theoretical background and individual training with computers as well as importance of personal experience in solving practical AI.