Abstract
A more promising technology to integrate existing software systems and their functionalities and to add assistant systems for the shop floors is to be found in software agents. Concerning with the applications of agent technology to intelligent process automation systems, a flexible and extensible approach based on multi-agent system (MAS) and distributed planning technique to reach for increased flexibility and fault-tolerance in process monitoring and control operations is proposed. The monitoring operations are aimed at combining information from different sources depending on the monitoring tasks. The control operations are supervisory control tasks performing either in both sequential and iterative forms. The agent layer is used for monitoring the operations of the lower-level automation systems and reconfiguring its control logic. It operates as a distributed planning and plan execution system to increase the operational flexibility of the whole process automation systems. The software architecture and its functionalities and components for the implementation of the proposed approach are also presented. The design strategy and the discussion on the proposed approach are provided.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Bussmann, S., Jennings, N.R., Wooldridge, M.: On the Identification of Agents in the Design of Production Control Systems. In: Ciancarini, P., Wooldridge, M.J. (eds.) AOSE 2000. LNCS, vol. 1957, pp. 141–162. Springer, Heidelberg (2001)
Choinski, D., Nocon, W., Metzger, M.: Multi-Agent System for Hierarchical Control with Self-organising Database. In: Nguyen, N.T., Grzech, A., Howlett, R.J., Jain, L.C. (eds.) KES-AMSTA 2007. LNCS, vol. 4496, pp. 655–664. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)
Cockburn, D., Jennings, N.R.: ARCHON: A Distributed Artificial Intelligence System for Industrial Applications. In: O’Hare, G.M.P., Jennings, N.R. (eds.) Foundations of Distributed Artificial Intelligence, pp. 319–344. Wiley & Sons, Chichester (1996)
Davidsson, P., Wernstedt, F.: A Multi-Agent System Architecture for Coordination of Just-in-time Production and Distribution. In: Proceedings of the 2002 ACM Symposium on Applied Computing, pp. 294–299 (2002)
FIPA – The Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents (2009), http://www.fipa.org/
FIPA-OS Agent Toolkit (2009), http://sourceforge.net/projects/fipa-os/
Heragu, S.S., Graves, R.J., Kim, B.I., Onge, A.S.: Intelligent Agent Based Framework for Manufacturing Systems Control. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics - Part A 32(5), 560–573 (2002)
JADF – Java Agent Development Framework (July 24, 2009), http://jade.tilab.com/
Jennings, N.R.: An Agent-Based Approach for Building Complex Software Systems. Communication of the ACM 44(4), 35–41 (2001)
Kendall, E.A., Malkoun, M.T.: Design Patterns for the Development of Multiagent Systems. In: Dickson, L., Zhang, C. (eds.) DAI 1996. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 1286, pp. 17–31. Springer, Heidelberg (1997)
Leduc, R.J., Lawford, M., Dai, P.: Hierarchical Interface-Based Supervisory Control of a Flexible Manufacturing System. IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology 14(4), 654–668 (2006)
Maturana, F.P., Tichy, P., Staron, R., Slechta, P.: Using Dynamically Created Decision-Making Organizations (Holarchies) to Plan, Commit and Execute Control Tasks in a Chilled Water System. In: Proceedings of the 13th International Workshop on Database and Expert Systems Applications, pp. 613–622. IEEE CS Press, Los Alamitos (2000)
Mönch, L., Stehli., M.: ManufAg: A Multi-agent-System Framework for Production Control of Complex Manufacturing Systems. Information Systems and e-Business Management 4(2), 159–185 (2006)
Müller, J.P.: The Design of Intelligent Agents - A Layered Approach. In: Carbonell, J.G., Siekmann, J. (eds.) The Design of Intelligent Agents. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 1177, pp. 1–197. Springer, Heidelberg (1996)
Nahm, Y.E., Ishikawa, H.: A Hybrid Multi-Agent System Architecture for Enterprise Integration using Computer Networks. Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing 21(3), 217–234 (2005)
Obitko, M., Mařík, V.: Adding OWL Semantics to Ontologies Used in Multi-agent Systems for Manufacturing. In: Mařík, V., McFarlane, D.C., Valckenaers, P. (eds.) HoloMAS 2003. LNCS, vol. 2744, pp. 189–200. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)
Pirttioja, T., Seilonen, I., Pakonen, A., Halme, A., Koskinen, K.: Information Agents Handling Semantic Data as an Extension to Process Monitoring Systems. In: Mařík, V., Vyatkin, V., Colombo, A.W. (eds.) HoloMAS 2007. LNCS, vol. 4659, pp. 411–420. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)
Sanz, R.: Agents for Complex Control Systems. In: Samad, T., Weyrauch, J. (eds.) Automation, Control, and Complexity, pp. 171–190. Wiley & Sons, Chichester (2000)
Sauer, O., Sutschet, G.: A Step towards Real time. Manufacturing Engineer 85(3), 32–37 (2006)
Seilonen, I., Pirttioja, T., Pakonen, A., Appelqvist, P., Halme, A., Koskinen, K.: Distributed Planning Agents for Intelligent Prcess Automation. In: Proceedings of the 2003 IEEE International Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Robotics and Automation, pp. 614–619. IEEE Press, Los Alamitos (2003)
Seilonen, I., Pirttioja, T., Pakonen, A., Appelqvist, P., Halme, A., Koskinen, K.: Information Access and Control Operations in Multi-agent System Based Process Automation. In: Mařík, V., William Brennan, R., Pěchouček, M. (eds.) HoloMAS 2005. LNCS, vol. 3593, pp. 144–153. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)
Seilonen, I.: An Extended Process Automation System: An Approach based on a Multi-Agent System. Doctoral Thesis, Helsinki University of Technology, Finland (2006)
Sycara, K.P.: Multiagent Systems. Magazine of American Association for Artificial Intelligence 19(2), 79–92 (1998)
Tan, V.V., Yoo, D.-S., Yi, M.-J.: A Multiagent-System Framework for Hierarchical Control and Monitoring of Complex Process Control Systems. In: Bui, T.D., Ho, T.V., Ha, Q.T. (eds.) PRIMA 2008. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 5357, pp. 381–388. Springer, Heidelberg (2008)
The OPC Foundation, http://www.opcfoundation.org/
Tichý, P., Šlechta, P., Maturana, F., Balasubramanian, S.: Industrial MAS for Planning and Control. In: Mařík, V., Štěpánková, O., Krautwurmová, H., Luck, M. (eds.) ACAI 2001, EASSS 2001, AEMAS 2001, and HoloMAS 2001. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 2322, pp. 280–295. Springer, Heidelberg (2002)
van Breemen, A., de Vries, T.: An Agent-Based Framework for Designing Multi-Controller Systems. In: Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on the Practical Applications of Intelligent Agents and Multi-Agent Technology, pp. 219–235 (2000)
Wang, H., Wang, C.: Intelligent Agents in the Nuclear Industry. IEEE Computer 30(11), 28–34 (1997)
Weiss, G. (ed.): Multiagent Systems. MIT Press, Cambridge (1999)
Wernstedt, F., Davidsson, P.: An Agent-Based Approach to Monitoring and Control of District Heating Systems. In: Hendtlass, T., Ali, M. (eds.) IEA/AIE 2002. LNCS, vol. 2358, pp. 801–811. Springer, Heidelberg (2002)
Wooldridge, M.J.: An Introduction to Multiagent Systems. Wiley & Sons, Chichester (2002)
Xue, X., Liu, X., Li, R.: Towards a Customized Methodology to Develop Multi-agent Systems. In: Shi, Z.-Z., Sadananda, R. (eds.) PRIMA 2006. LNCS(LNAI), vol. 4088, pp. 105–116. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Van Tan, V., Yi, MJ. (2009). A Multi-Agent System Based Approach to Intelligent Process Automation Systems. In: Yang, JJ., Yokoo, M., Ito, T., Jin, Z., Scerri, P. (eds) Principles of Practice in Multi-Agent Systems. PRIMA 2009. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 5925. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-11161-7_30
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-11161-7_30
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-11160-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-11161-7
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)