Ronald Schoop

A multiagent-based distributed control platform for industrial flexible production systems

The tendency of recent production technologies towards both batches of small/medium size and part families of increasing variety often comes into conflict with the demand for high productivity, i.e. production-time minimization and simultaneous improvement of machine utilization. Flexible production systems possess the ability to attain efficiency and versatility by producing a wide range of different product families with minimal effort in changing the involved manufacturing environment. Nevertheless, the production systems flexibility and degree of reliability depend fundamentally on the flexibility and reliability of the embedded control system. This paper reports on the design and realization of a multi-agent-based distributed control system for flexible production systems, which covers both conventional control equipment as well as embedded control agents. The agent components are implemented as Windows NT services and logic control programs interfaced via DCOM and an Ethernet. The results of the application in an industrial flexible production system are used to show the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

A collaborative automation approach to distributed production systems

The new enterprise organizations, such as virtual enterprise and smart enterprise, require the usage of collaborative automation approaches, addressing the flexibility and dynamic re-configurability. Collaborative automation is a result of the integration of emerging technologies and paradigms like smart agent-based control technology, mechatronics, communication and information. This paper reviews the paradigms evolution from CIM to the collaborative manufacturing management and discusses how and why the holonic control architecture ADACOR is a typical architecture that exhibits the real meaning of the collaborative manufacturing management concept

A Framework for Development and Implementation of Web service-Based Intelligent Autonomous Mechatronics Components

In this paper, a framework to support the transition of existing (legacy) production systems to a new Intelligent Autonomous Mechatronics Components-based (IAMC) collaborative structure has been addressed. After a first overview of the key enabling technologies and methods, the authors propose integrating Web-based service-oriented architecture and a software-based framework for implementing a platform to allow collaborative production automation behaviours. As one of the major outcomes of the application of this approach at industrial level, the authors address the few hardware investments and the facilitation of integrating legacy systems. In the research and development contexts of the contribution, the authors identify some key objectives that still need to be realised and/or improved, in order to allow a broad implementation of IAMC-based collaborative automation systems in the industry.

Flexible manufacturing control with PLC, CNC and software agents

This paper reports on the design and realization of a flexible and robust control system, based on an agent architecture. Regarding the increasing availability, performance and acceptance of distributed object-oriented systems as well as the growing number of agent-oriented software it is natural to adapt and use the capabilities of both object-oriented and agent-oriented software as a platform for distributed industrial applications. The agent-oriented software components are implemented as intelligent add-ons to conventional PLC and CNC control equipment as well as Industrial PCs operating under Windows NT and interfacing via DCOM and Ethernet. It is used for the control of a flexible manufacturing system cylinder head production at DaimlerChrysler, Germany. Similar known systems are in research status only. The results of a 2 (and partly 3) shift production since more than one year are outstanding: k-factor of 0.89 by tolerating failed machines, production of specific, none pre-planned workpieces.

Formal specification of holonic control system ADACOR product holon, using high-level Petri nets

Holonic manufacturing and multi-agent paradigms are suitable to support the actual challenges of flexible manufacturing systems, due to their decentralisation, modularity and autonomy features. The formal specification assumes a critical role in order to understand and synthesise those complex systems. The Petri nets formalism is adequate to model and validate the dynamic behaviour, but present weak points when the system contains many instances of the same component, since the model grows (structure and components) in a non-controllable manner. The use of high-level Petri nets, allows to reduce this complexity, by compressing the representation of states, actions and events, to overcome the identified limitations and to support more complex and bigger coordination scenarios. We present a formal specification of the ADACOR product holons using high-level Petri nets and the associated formal validation of the model.