TY - JOUR
T1 - Investigation of the reconfigurable control system for an agile manufacturing cell
AU - Zhang, Jie
AU - Chan, Felix T. S.
AU - Li, Peigen
AU - Lau, Henry C. W.
AU - Ip, Ralph W. L.
AU - Samaranayake, Premaratne
PY - 2002
Y1 - 2002
N2 - A new type of manufacturing cell, with characteristics of reconfigurability, reusability and scalability, needs to be developed. To achieve the agile reconfiguration of a manufacturing cell, the cell control system must be rapidly and efficiently generated or modified. In this paper, a multi-agent based architecture is defined that supports the design and implementation of highly reconfigurable control systems for agile manufacturing cells, which are comprised of resource agents (material processing agents, material handling agents, and material storage agents), a control agent, and an information agent, in order to reduce costs and increase the control system's agility with respect to the changing environment. Different agents in the cell control system can be organized dynamically, communicate with each other through messages, and cooperate with each other to perform flexibly the task in the cell control system. The structure of the agents is proposed and the message-passing between agents is discussed in detail.
AB - A new type of manufacturing cell, with characteristics of reconfigurability, reusability and scalability, needs to be developed. To achieve the agile reconfiguration of a manufacturing cell, the cell control system must be rapidly and efficiently generated or modified. In this paper, a multi-agent based architecture is defined that supports the design and implementation of highly reconfigurable control systems for agile manufacturing cells, which are comprised of resource agents (material processing agents, material handling agents, and material storage agents), a control agent, and an information agent, in order to reduce costs and increase the control system's agility with respect to the changing environment. Different agents in the cell control system can be organized dynamically, communicate with each other through messages, and cooperate with each other to perform flexibly the task in the cell control system. The structure of the agents is proposed and the message-passing between agents is discussed in detail.
KW - automation
KW - computer integrated manufacturing systems
KW - flexible manufacturing systems
KW - manufacturing cells
KW - research
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:1375
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0037109637&partnerID=8YFLogxK
M3 - Article
SN - 0020-7543
VL - 40
SP - 3709
EP - 3723
JO - International Journal of Production Research
JF - International Journal of Production Research
IS - 15 SPEC.
ER -
