Distributed control architecture for intelligent systems

In contrast to a hierarchical and centralized structure, distributed or decentralized control architectures reveal their main advantages when it is necessary to enhance the system, to integrate components, and to maintain the system. The main disadvantage of not centralized architectures is having to make sure that the system will fulfill an overall or global goal. To investigate these problems, a distributed control architecture for intelligent systems was developed at the University of Karlsruhe. In this paper, the methods for dead-lock-free coordination and cooperation are explained.