scholarly journals An approach for leveraging Digital Twins in agent-based production systems

2021 ◽  
Vol 69 (12) ◽  
pp. 1026-1039
Author(s):  
Birgit Vogel-Heuser ◽  
Felix Ocker ◽  
Tobias Scheuer
Keyword(s):  
Production Systems ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Knowledge Bases ◽  
Multi Agent System ◽  
Multi Agent Systems ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Agent Systems ◽  
Digital Twins ◽  
Multi Agent ◽  
The Individual

Abstract To cope with individualization and the high costs of downtimes, modern production systems should be flexible, adaptable, and resilient. Multi-Agent Systems are suitable to address these requirements by decentralizing production systems. However, the agent paradigm is still not widely applied. One of the key reasons is that the agents’ knowledge bases had to be created manually, which is cumbersome, error-prone, and insufficiently standardized. Digital Twins have the potential to solve this issue, as they describe relevant information in a standardized way. This paper presents an approach to leveraging Digital Twins, i. e., the Asset Administration Shell, to realize Multi-Agent Systems in the production context. For this, a parser automatically extracts relevant information from the Digital Twins and initializes the individual agents in a Multi-Agent System, i. e., PADE.

Evolutionary Computation as a Paradigm for Engineering Emergent Behaviour in Multi-Agent Systems

2011 ◽  
pp. 118-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert E. Smith ◽  
Claudio Bonacina
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Computation ◽  
Multi Agent System ◽  
Multi Agent Systems ◽  
Agent System ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Agent Systems ◽  
Emergent Behaviour ◽  
Shaping System ◽  
Multi Agent

In the multi-agent system (MAS) context, the theories and practices of evolutionary computation (EC) have new implications, particularly with regard to engineering and shaping system behaviors. Thus, it is important that we consider the embodiment of EC in “real” agents, that is, agents that involve the real restrictions of time and space within MASs. In this chapter, we address these issues in three ways. First, we relate the foundations of EC theory to MAS and consider how general interactions among agents fit within this theory. Second, we introduce a platform independent agent system to assure that our EC methods work within the generic, but realistic, constraints of agents. Finally, we introduce an agent-based system of EC objects. Concluding sections discuss implications and future directions.

Evolutionary Computation as a Paradigm for Engineering Emergent Behaviour in Multi-Agent Systems

2011 ◽  
pp. 2338-2350
Author(s):  
Robert E. Smith ◽  
Claudia Bonacina
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Computation ◽  
Multi Agent System ◽  
Multi Agent Systems ◽  
Agent System ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Agent Systems ◽  
Emergent Behaviour ◽  
Shaping System ◽  
Multi Agent

In the multi-agent system (MAS) context, the theories and practices of evolutionary computation (EC) have new implications, particularly with regard to engineering and shaping system behaviors. Thus, it is important that we consider the embodiment of EC in “real” agents, that is, agents that involve the real restrictions of time and space within MASs. In this chapter, we address these issues in three ways. First, we relate the foundations of EC theory to MAS and consider how general interactions among agents fit within this theory. Second, we introduce a platform independent agent system to assure that our EC methods work within the generic, but realistic, constraints of agents. Finally, we introduce an agent-based system of EC objects. Concluding sections discuss implications and future directions.

scholarly journals Towards trustworthy Cyber-physical Production Systems: A dynamic agent accountability approach

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-180
Author(s):  
Richárd Beregi ◽  
Gianfranco Pedone ◽  
Davy Preuveneers
Keyword(s):  
Production Systems ◽  
Smart Manufacturing ◽  
Use Case ◽  
Multi Agent Systems ◽  
Hand Tools ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Agent Systems ◽  
Multi Agent ◽  
Cyber Physical Production Systems ◽  
Dynamic Authorization

Smart manufacturing is a challenging trend being fostered by the Industry 4.0 paradigm. In this scenario Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) are particularly elected for modeling such types of intelligent, decentralised processes, thanks to their autonomy in pursuing collective and cooperative goals. From a human perspective, however, increasing the confidence in trustworthiness of MAS based Cyber-physical Production Systems (CPPS) remains a significant challenge. Manufacturing services must comply with strong requirements in terms of reliability, robustness and latency, and solution providers are expected to ensure that agents will operate within certain boundaries of the production, and mitigate unattended behaviours during the execution of manufacturing activities. To address this concern, a Manufacturing Agent Accountability Framework is proposed, a dynamic authorization framework that defines and enforces boundaries in which agents are freely permitted to exploit their intelligence to reach individual and collective objectives. The expected behaviour of agents is to adhere to CPPS workflows which implicitly define acceptable regions of behaviours and production feasibility. Core contributions of the proposed framework are: a manufacturing accountability model, the representation of the Leaf Diagrams for the governance of agent behavioural autonomy, and an ontology of declarative policies for the identification and avoidance of ill-intentioned behaviours in the execution of CPPS services. We outline the application of this enhanced trustworthiness framework to an agent-based manufacturing use-case for the production of a variety of hand tools.

scholarly journals Multi-Agent Systems in Control Engineering: A Survey

2009 ◽  
Vol 2009 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fatemeh Daneshfar ◽  
Hassan Bevrani
Keyword(s):  
Control Systems ◽  
Control Design ◽  
Multi Agent System ◽  
Multi Agent Systems ◽  
Control Engineering ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Agent Systems ◽  
Design And Implementation ◽  
Engineering Environment ◽  
Multi Agent

This paper presents a survey on multi-agent system (MAS) capabilities in control engineering applications. It describes essential concepts of multi-agent systems that are related to the control systems and presents an overview on the most important control engineering issues which MAS can be explored. Most important technical aspects in MAS implementation and development in engineering environment are also explained. Design methodologies, standards, tools, and supporting technologies to provide an effective MAS-based control design are addressed and a discussion on important related standards and protocols is given. Finally, some comments and new perspectives for design and implementation of agent-based control systems are presented.

Multi-Agent Based Control of a Heterogeneous System

2006 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Howard Li ◽  
◽  
Fakhreddine Karray ◽  
Otman Basir ◽  
Insop Song
Keyword(s):  
Robot Manipulator ◽  
Rule Base ◽  
Multi Agent System ◽  
Coordination Control ◽  
Multi Agent Systems ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Agent Systems ◽  
Multi Agent ◽  
Hybrid Agent ◽  
Control Layer

In this study, the Coordinated Hybrid Agent (CHA) framework for the control of Multi-Agent Systems (MASs) is applied for a heterogeneous multi-agent system. The system consists of a mobile robot, an overhead crane, and a robot manipulator. The final goal for this project is to implement coordination tasks for the system. In this framework, the control of the MAS is regarded as a decentralized control and coordination of agents. A coordination rule base is developed for the intelligent coordination control layer. Experiments show that the framework is able to model the heterogeneous multi-agent systems.

scholarly journals Energy redistribution in autonomous hybridization of agent-based computing

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mateusz Godzik
Keyword(s):  
Energy Level ◽  
Experimental Results ◽  
Multi Agent System ◽  
Multi Agent Systems ◽  
Agent System ◽  
Energy Redistribution ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Agent Systems ◽  
Multi Agent

Evolutionary multi-agent systems (EMAS) are very good at dealing with difficult, multi-dimensional problems. Currently, research is underway to improve this algorithm, giving even more freedom to agents not only in solving the problem but also in making decisions on the behavior of the algorithm. One way is to hybridize this algorithm with other existing algorithms creating Hybrid Evolutionary Multi Agent-System (HEMAS). Unfortunately, such connections generate problems in the form of an unbalanced energy level of agents who have made the decision to use such an improvement. One of the solutions is the mechanism of redistributing the agents' energy in the form of an operator. The article presents several proposals of redistribution operators along with numerous experimental results.

scholarly journals Flocking for Multiagent Systems with Partial Information Exchange Based on Inclusion Principle

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Hui Wei ◽  
Xuebo Chen
Keyword(s):  
Information Exchange ◽  
Partial Information ◽  
Individual Heterogeneity ◽  
Multi Agent System ◽  
Multi Agent Systems ◽  
Agent Systems ◽  
Multi Agent ◽  
The Stability ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Multi Agents

This paper investigates the flocking problem of multi-agents with partial information exchange, which means that only part, but not all, of the agents are informed of the group objective. A distributed flocking model based on the inclusion principle is provided to simplify the design and analysis of multi-agent systems. Furthermore, to reduce the communication energy consumption, an improved flocking algorithm based on the model is proposed to achieve stable flocking for all the agents. The stability of the multi-agent system is then established, with the help of the Lyapunov stability theorem and LaSalle’s invariance principle. Especially, considering the individual heterogeneity in both nature and engineering applications, we also investigate the flocking problem of multi-agents with different sensing radiuses and equilibrium distances. Finally, two kinds of simulation results are presented to demonstrate the validity of the proposed results. This work provides an insight not only into the properties of the different species of individual flocking, but also into the theoretical framework for the engineering design of multi-agent systems considering individual heterogeneity.

Learning From Insects to Increase Multi-Agent System Resilience: Functional Decomposition and Transfer to Support Biologically Inspired Design

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabella V. Hernandez ◽  
Bryan C. Watson ◽  
Marc Weissburg ◽  
Bert Bras
Keyword(s):  
Agent Based Modeling ◽  
Multi Agent System ◽  
Multi Agent Systems ◽  
Biologically Inspired ◽  
Agent System ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Agent Systems ◽  
Multi Agent ◽  
System Resilience ◽  
Biologically Inspired Design

Abstract Resilience is an emergent property of complex systems that describes the ability to detect, respond, and recover from adversity. Much of the modern world consists of multiple, interacting, and independent agents (i.e. Multi-Agent Systems). However, the process of improving Multi-Agent System resilience is not well understood. We seek to address this gap by applying Biologically Inspired Design to increase complex system resilience. Eusocial insect colonies are an ideal case study for system resilience. Although individual insects have low computing power, the colonies collectively perform complex tasks and demonstrate resilience. Therefore, analyzing key elements of eusocial insect colonies may offer insight on how to increase Multi-Agent System resilience. Before the strategies used in eusocial insects can be adapted for Multi-Agent Systems, however, the existing research must be identified and transferred from the biological sciences to the engineering field. These transfers often hinder or limit biologically inspired design. This paper translates the biological investigation of individual insects and colony network behavior into strategies that can be tested to increase Multi-Agent System resilience. These strategies are formulated to be applied to Agent-Based Modeling. Agent-Based Modeling has been applied to many Multi-Agent Systems including epidemiology, traffic management, and marketing. This provides a key step in the design-by-analogy process: Identifying and decoding analogies from their original context. The design principles proposed in this work provide a foundation for future testing and eventual implementation into Multi-Agent Systems.

scholarly journals Use of the Multi-Agent Paradigm in Sustainable Tourism

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martina Husáková
Keyword(s):  
Complex Systems ◽  
Sustainable Tourism ◽  
Multi Agent Systems ◽  
Economic Prosperity ◽  
Cultural Economic ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Agent Systems ◽  
Multi Agent ◽  
In Silico Models

Abstract Complex systems are characterised by a huge amount of components, which are highly linked with each other. Tourism is one of the examples of complex systems collecting various activities leading to the enrichment of travellers in the view of receiving new experiences and increasing economic prosperity of specific destinations. The complex systems can be investigated with various bottom-up and top-down approaches. The multi-agent-based modelling is the bottom-up approach that is focused on the representation of individual entities for the exploration of possible interactions among them and their effects on surrounding environments. These systems are able to integrate knowledge of socio-cultural, economic, physical, biological or environmental systems for in-silico models development, which can be used for experimentation with a system. The main aim of the presented text is to introduce links between tourism, complexity and to advocate usefulness of the multi-agent-based systems for the exploration of tourism and its sustainability. The evaluation of suitability of the multi-agent systems in tourism is based on the investigation of fundamental characteristics of these two systems and on the review of specific applications of the multi-agent systems in sustainable tourism.

scholarly journals Towards developing a cyber-physical multi-agent system for managing precise farms with digital twins of plants

2019 ◽  
pp. 257-261
Author(s):  
Vladimir Laryukhin ◽  
Petr Skobelev ◽  
Oleg Lakhin ◽  
Sergey Grachev ◽  
Vladimir Yalovenko ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Knowledge Bases ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Plant Soil ◽  
Plant Cultivation ◽  
Technical Requirements ◽  
Digital Twins ◽  
History Of ◽  
Multi Agent ◽  
High Uncertainty

The paper presents the multi-agent approach for developing cyber-physical system for managing precise farms with digital twins of plants. It discusses complexity of the problem caused by a priori incompleteness of knowledge about factors of plant growth and development, high uncertainty of crops cultivation, variety of weather, business and technical requirements, etc. The approach proposes knowledge bases and multi-agent technology in combination with machine learning methods for designing considered systems. Digital twin of plant is specified as an agent based on ontology model of objects relevant for plant cultivation (specific sort of plant, soil, etc) associated with history of operations and environment conditions. The architecture and functions of system components are designed. The expected results of system implementation and the benefits for farmers are discussed.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document