Kenwood H. Hall

Rockwell Automation's Holonic and Multiagent Control Systems Compendium

This paper provides a comprehensive overview of long-term R&D activities of the Rockwell Automation (RA) company in the field of holonic and agent-based manufacturing control systems. It presents a coherent framework of methodologies for designing agent-based control systems, tools that support implementation and validation of them, and agent applications that were developed for various industrial systems. The common attribute is the integration of novel techniques, such as multiagent systems or semantics with the current “old-fashioned” automation architectures represented mainly by programmable logic controllers. Retaining the ability of the control system to meet the strict real-time constraints and concurrently raise its intelligence has always been of highest importance. The paper does not focus merely on RAs work, but discusses all its aspects in a context of other existing works in this area.

Distributed multi-agent architecture for automation systems

Abstract In the 21st century, industrial automation will be greatly benefited by the advances in electronics, information systems, and process technology. However, these technological advances are still separate islands of automation. We believe that multi-agent systems will help the future of automation by providing flexible and scalable ways to integrate the different parts. This paper reports preliminary results of an ongoing research project that demonstrates advanced automation in a highly distributed architecture that is made of a synergy of intelligent agents, control, and physical devices. This was built to achieve the goals of reduced manning and improved readiness and survivability in US Navy shipboard systems.

Multiagent technology for fault tolerance and flexible control

One of the main characteristics of multiagent systems (MAS) is fault tolerance. When an agent is unavailable for some reason, another agent with similar capabilities can theoretically compensate for this loss. The system can be designed not only for this kind of fault tolerance but also for others. Many key aspects of fault tolerance in MAS are described in this correspondence including social knowledge and physical distribution. We present a MAS framework that has been designed for control applications, in which fault tolerance and flexibility are key parts of the system

Experience with holonic and agent-based control systems and their adoption by industry

Currently industrial automation systems are built using a hierarchical top-down approach, yielding tightly coupled and low flexibility systems. Holonic and intelligent agent-based industrial control systems have the potential to be much more highly robust and flexible systems with very loose coupling between subsystems. Despite this potential these systems are slow to be adopted by industry. This paper explores Rockwell Automations current agent philosophy, application experience, the obstacles to widespread adoption of agent technology in industrial automation systems, and its recent activities to overcome some of the obstacles.

Agents in industry: the best from the AAMAS 2005 industry track

Agent technology provides industrial-applications developers with new abstractions for distributed-system development, new methodological tools, and a set of algorithms for creating autonomous, collaborative systems. Over the past few years, a number of industrial applications have deployed agents. However, a substantial gap still exists between the cutting-edge research carried out mainly in university laboratories and research institutes and the domain-specific industrial applications that commercial organizations develop. This article gives some indication of agent technologys readiness for commercial deployment, based primarily on the presentations and discussions at the inaugural Industry Track of AAMAS 2005 - the Fourth International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems.

The Past, Present, and Future of IEC 61499

In 1991, Technical Committee 65 (TC65) of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) approved a New Work Item (NWI) for the development of an international standard for the use of software objects known as Function Blocks (FBs) in distributed Industrial-Process Measurement and Control Systems (dIPMCS). The need for this new standard resulted out of several studies and research programs that have been started or conducted in the late eighties and early nineties of the last century. IEC 61499 got finally standardized in January 2005. Before that, since 2000, it was available in the form of a so-called Public Available Specification (PAS). Although IEC 61499 has been available for so long, up to now most published work on it has been academic or resulted only in prototypical test cases. Most activities around the IEC 61499 standard have been in standardization of the execution environment and definition of semantics. Some current research is in pursuing design and coding tools. This paper gives and overview about the past and present activities and implementations related to IEC 61499 and discusses the potential of this new standard for future application scenarios.

Challenges to Industry Adoption of the IEC 61499 Standard on Event-based Function Blocks

The IEC 61499 standard on event-based function blocks was adopted between 2003 and 2005. Even considering this relatively recent acceptance as a standard, adoption by the major control system equipment vendors has been slow to nonexistent. This paper examines some of the challenges that must be met to encourage more active use and support for IEC 61499 function blocks. Some current research activities are noted, as well as some ideas for future research and development with the intent to make adoption of IEC 61499 more attractive to both vendors and customers.

An Intelligent Agent Validation Architecture for Distributed Manufacturing Organizations

In this paper, we focus on validation of Multi-Agent System (MAS) behavior. We describe the simulation architecture and the system design methodology to accomplish the appropriate agent behavior for controlling a real-life automation system. The architecture is explained in the context of an industrial-sized water cooling system. Nevertheless, it is intended to operate in a wide spectrum of control domains. In general, after the design of the control system is accomplished, a set of validation procedures takes place. The current needs are to validate both the control and the agent levels as integrated parts. Hence there is a need to establish a general architecture and methodology for easing the commissioning process of the control solution.

A Real-Time Interface for Holonic Control Devices

In this paper we present a general specification for a real-time transformation interface for Holonic Control Devices. This interface is intended to provide the logical linkage between the two worlds of agents and machines, which is needed to realise truly holonic systems.

Forward-Special Issue on Industrial Applications of Holonic Manufacturing Systems

The two reviews and five papers in this special issue focus on industrial applications of holonic manufacturing systems.