Olivier Roulet-Dubonnet

An application of the Holonic manufacturing system to a flexible assembly cell

This paper presents a flexible and reconfigurable assembly cell designed using the Holonic Manufacturing System paradigm. The function of the cell is to assemble damped machining tools. The automation is challenging due to the size and frequency of changes in the product spectrum. The current version of the cell is composed of an assembly robot, a pallet transport system, the feeding equipment including a custom elevator, and sensors including stereo vision systems. The Holonic Manufacturing System paradigm has been used both for the architecture of the real-time control system and for the mechanical design of the cell. Therefore, when appropriate, the holons do not communicate through software or signal but through the realization of their tasks and the use of sensors to update the view of their environment. The system demonstrates the advantages of the Holonic Manufacturing System paradigm to achieve the required reliability, flexibility and reconfigurability of smaller manufacturing cells.

Holonic shop-floor application for handling, feeding and transportation of workpieces

In pursuit of flexible and agile automation within the domain of discrete manufacturing, a paint-shop with its surrounding logistics and handling processes is under construction as a laboratory prototype application. Holonic manufacturing is argued to be a promising strategic paradigm and architecture to use for a system characterised by flexible production logistics and control. This article describes the physical devices to be used; the desired functionality; and the basic logic control design. Additionally, the ideas for holonification, based on the already designed logic control, are presented. This article also outlines a holonic automated guided vehicle (AGV) system developed for the automated paint-shop. The AGV system is composed of autonomous AGV holons that cooperate, individually or in groups, with other holons, such as robot holons and vision-system holons.

Holonic Manufacturing Paint Shop

and Motivation.- Holonic Rationale and Self-organization on Design of Complex Evolvable Systems.- Service-Oriented Agents for Collaborative Industrial Automation and Production Systems.- Usability of Multi-agent Based Control Systems in Industrial Automation.- Knowledge-Centered Approaches.- An Organizational Knowledge Ontology for Automotive Supply Chains.- Semantic Extension of Agent-Based Control: The Packing Cell Case Study.- Product Design Network Self-contextualization: Enterprise Knowledge-Based Approach and Agent-Based Technological Framework.- Selected Theoretical Aspects.- Collaboration of Metaheuristic Algorithms through a Multi-Agent System.- Functional Integrity of Multi-agent Computational System Supported by Component-Based Implementation.- On the Empirical Evaluation of an Interdisciplinary Framework for Automated Negotiation.- MAS Scheduling and Simulation.- A Decentralized Scheduling Policy for a Dynamically Reconfigurable Production System.- A Study on Real-Virtual Interaction Method for Production Scheduling Using Model Plant.- Using an Agent-Supported Simulation Environment for Intelligent Manufacturing Systems.- A Study on Real-Time Scheduling for Holonic Manufacturing Systems - Determination of Utility Values Based on Multi-agent Reinforcement Learning.- MAS Control.- An Open-Control Concept for a Holonic Multiagent System.- Plan, Commit, Execute Protocol in Multi-agent Systems.- Distributed Sensing and Control Architecture for Automotive Factory Automation.- MAS-Based Cooperative Control for Biotechnological Process-A Case Study.- Design and Implementation of LabVIEW-Based IEC61499 Compliant Device.- Holonic Systems for Manufacturing.- Holonic-Based Environment for Solving Transportation Problems.- Holonic Manufacturing Paint Shop.- Development of a Holonic Free-Roaming AGV System for Part Manufacturing.- Safety Discrete Event Models for Holonic Cyclic Manufacturing Systems.- A Holonic Chain Conveyor Control System: An Application.- MAS and Holonic Applications.- A Multiagent System for Self-organisation of an 802.11 Mesh Network.- Mobility Model for Tactical Networks.- Holonic Modelling of Large Scale Geographic Environments.- Holonic Models for Traffic Control Systems.- A Multi-Agent System for the Pay-As-You-GO (PAYGO) Social Security Scheme.- Contract Monitoring in Agent-Based Systems: Case Study.- A Multi-agent Scheduler for Rent-a-Car Companies.- A Framework for Multi Robot Guidance Control.

IceHMS, a Middleware for Distributed Control of Manufacturing Systems

This paper presents a new middleware, dubbed IceHMS specifically designed to support the development of distributed manufacturing control systems requiring flexibility. IceHMS has been used in several research applications in the field of flexible and reconfigurable manufacturing which are documented in dedicated scientific papers. This paper focuses on the description of the IceHMS middelware. IceHMS distinguishes itself from mainstream multi-agent platforms by its design for distributed applications and in its cross-programming language and cross-OS operating system support. IceHMS is a thin, non-intrusive multi-agent layer running over a proven communication engine, the Internet Communication Engine IceTM by ZeroC Inc. The code of IceHMS is open-source and is freely available.

A Method and Application to Simulate and Validate Manufacturing Control Systems Based on a Discrete Manufacturing Simulation Platform

This paper presents a method and an example application developed to simulate and validate distributed control systems. Using the application, the devices modelled in the manufacturing simulation system, are automatically exposed to the control system with a high level interface similar to the real devices. The devices, including the robots and transport system, can then be transparently operated from the control system as if they were the real devices. The solution is based on a commercial discrete manufacturing simulation platform called 3DCreateTM from Visual Component, a thin custom interface layer dubbed VCHMS and a multi-agent holonic middleware called IceHMS. The VCHMS software communicates in real-time with 3DCreateTM and exposes selected objects and signals to the holonic control system and is also able to translate messages from the holonic system to 3DCreateTM signals. In addition to its emulation capability, the presented solution has the decisive advantage to reuse the simulation model which is often created earlier for discrete event simulation. The solution has enabled the emulation of a complete production line at GKN Aerospace Norway. The virtual line has been tested and the solution will enable the development and validation of different control strategies from simple pull based systems to complete holonic manufacturing control systems.

Additive Manufacturing by Robot: An Overview of the State-of-the-Art and Proof-of-Concept Results

For the last decades, additive manufacturing (AM) has become an ever increasing part of the development of new technology and devices. However, it is still challenging to use this technology on a larger scale. This paper presents the state-of-the-art of large-scale AM, looking into some of the projects that have come furthest in utilising AM technology on large structures such as buildings or sculptures. The background for this research is to consider the possibility of large-scale AM by robot manipulator using the welding method cold metal transfer (CMT). After outlining the the necessary algorithms and components for such an AM system, a proof-of-concept experiment using a UR5 robot is presented. This initial experiment will clarify some of the challenges that need to be addressed in future work.

Development of a Holonic Free-Roaming AGV System for Part Manufacturing

This paper presents an Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV) system under development and its industrial background as a support system for an automated paint department. The focus is on demonstrating how the holonic architecture can be used to implement a flexible AGV system. The system is composed of autonomous AGV holons who cooperate, directly or as groups, with other holons such as robot holons, vision-system holons and order holons to produce the real parts. The holonic architecture is described in detail and example use-cases presented.