A multi-contract net protocol for dynamic scheduling in flexible manufacturing systems (FMS)

Deals with a multi-agent architecture and a negotiation protocol for the dynamic scheduling of flexible manufacturing systems. The originality of the multi-agent architecture resides in the existence of task agents and resource agents. The multi-contract net protocol proposed, is an innovation with regard to the contract-net protocol due to the way that it makes it possible to negotiate several tasks concurrently, in real time and with more optimal results taking into account uncertainty and conflict situations in the scheduling of operations. The paper, also, stresses the efficiency and the optimality of the distributed implementation.