Simulation Platform for Multi Agent Based Manufacturing Control System Based on The Hybrid Agent

📝 Abstract

Agent based distributed manufacturing control and scheduling systems are subsets of new manufacturing systems. Multi agent systems (MAS) not only drive design and engineering control solutions but also influence flexibility, agility, and re-configurability, which makes MASs a better centralized systems than its traditional counterparts. However, implementation of all MASs in the real factories are timely, also extremely costly. A simulation environment that would allow independent development and testing of the services and business processes of the related manufacturing hardware is needed. This paper presents the design and implementation of a userfriendly simulation platform for multi agent based manufacturing control systems by considering the shop floor level. The proposed simulation platform can simulate the software level of the factory by considering the hardware level of the mentioned factory. An example of the simulation platform is presented for a flexible manufacturing system, which is located in EMU CIM lab.

💡 Analysis

Agent based distributed manufacturing control and scheduling systems are subsets of new manufacturing systems. Multi agent systems (MAS) not only drive design and engineering control solutions but also influence flexibility, agility, and re-configurability, which makes MASs a better centralized systems than its traditional counterparts. However, implementation of all MASs in the real factories are timely, also extremely costly. A simulation environment that would allow independent development and testing of the services and business processes of the related manufacturing hardware is needed. This paper presents the design and implementation of a userfriendly simulation platform for multi agent based manufacturing control systems by considering the shop floor level. The proposed simulation platform can simulate the software level of the factory by considering the hardware level of the mentioned factory. An example of the simulation platform is presented for a flexible manufacturing system, which is located in EMU CIM lab.

📄 Content

CIE45 Proceedings, 28-30 October 2015, Metz / France

SIMULATION PLATFORM FOR MULTI AGENT BASED MANUFACTURING CONTROL SYSTEM BASED ON THE HYBRID AGENT Ali Vatankhah barenji1, Amir Shaygan2, Reza Vatankhah Barenji2 1Department of Mechanical Engineering Eastern Mediterranean University, Famagusta, North Cyprus, Turkey 2Department of Industrial Engineering Hacettepe University, Beytepe Campus Ankara, Turkey Ali.vatankhah@cc.emu.edu.tr ABSTRACT Agent based distributed manufacturing control and scheduling systems are subsets of new manufacturing systems. Multi agent systems (MAS) not only drive design and engineering control solutions but also influence flexibility, agility, and re-configurability, which makes MASs a better centralized systems than its traditional counterparts. However, implementation of all MASs in the real factories are timely, also extremely costly. A simulation environment that would allow independent development and testing of the services and business processes of the related manufacturing hardware is needed. This paper presents the design and implementation of a user- friendly simulation platform for multi agent based manufacturing control systems by considering the shop floor level. The proposed simulation platform can simulate the software level of the factory by considering the hardware level of the mentioned factory. An example of the simulation platform is presented for a flexible manufacturing system, which is located in EMU CIM lab. Keywords: Multi-agent distributed manufacturing control system, Agility, Simulation

1. INTRODUCTION
   The era of “agile manufacturing”, “lean manufacturing” and “Intelligent manufacturing” in recent years, has brought worldwide competition among the manufacturing enterprises. This competition between the stockholders in global market intensively returns to scheduling and control system performance of the production system. Recent developments in MASs in manufacturing control field can solve the existing problems. In order for the aforementioned problems to be solved, more flexibility and agility are required as mentioned by Marik et al. [1]. MASs offers an alternate approach to design and managing of the control systems by providing modularity, robustness and autonomy. Jennings et al. [2] has indicated that at least 25% of the manufacturing problems can be solved.
   Jennings [2] also mentions that the software required for centralized methods is more complex than of those needed by the agents based approaches in terms of facilitating development, debugging and maintenance. However, the main problems of MASs are analyzing, testing, and validating of the behavior of the agent-based systems. Analyzing the MASs in manufacturing control not only depends on the software level but also on the hardware level in the shop floor. The design phase which takes place before the deployment of the resulted design in the real operation is usually an arduous and time consuming task. Therefore, simulation tools are required
   CIE45 Proceedings, 28-30 October 2015, Metz / France

in order to support the correction of misunderstandings and errors before implementation as mentioned by Luke et al.[3].
Several environments are reported for the simulation of multi agent systems in the literature such as Vrba [4-6]. Barbosa et al. [7] used an agent based modeling platform for the simulation of multi agent manufacturing systems .However; these platforms are developed for specific cases and according to the application particularities. This means that simulating the behavior of agent based manufacturing systems for newly developed systems needs significant effort. In addition, there is a lack of standard platform with the ability to analyze multi agent based manufacturing control system in both hardware and software levels. This paper proposes an architecture for simulating multi agent based manufacturing control system in the shop floor based on Hybrid Agent (HA). The HA is in simultaneous communication with MASs and shop floor control system. The remainder of this paper is structured as follows: Section 2 describes the architecture of simulation platform. Section 3 explains existing multi agent system. Section 4 explains a case study and discusses the results. Finally, Section 5 concludes the paper and presents future work.
2. ARCHITECTURE OF THE SIMULATION PLATFORM Virtual reality is one of the ways to simulate manufacturing control systems by considering shop floor. However due to the extended development time associated with the virtual resources of each machine, analyzing this type of system in an actual factory setting is infeasible according to Lin et al.[8]. Additionally, based on Barenji [9],when comparing alternate scheduling systems, it is extremely intricate to replicate a similar condition for tentative tests .A prototype simulation that acts as an actual system can be used to overcome this pro

This content is AI-processed based on ArXiv data.