Multi-agent based automation platform for distributed industrial systems

Due to the complexity of modern distributed industrial systems, a conventional automation system is not capable of providing sufficient information management an control with high-level intelligent approaches, as achieving these functionalities requires the support of comprehensive data management an coordination between system devices and homogenous information. This paper proposes a multiagent based automation platform in which computer networking and intelligent agent technologies are applied to distributed industrial systems, and presents a hardware and software architecture that implements this platform. The open architecture based on multi-agent systems is developed to allow the implementation of diverse talks of distributed automation systems and to permit greater configurability than can be obtained from a traditional automation system. To evaluate our proposed architecture, this paper presents a case study of the integration of information management, condition monitoring and control for power system substations, the results of the case study have been successfully obtained from the e-Automation Laboratory at the University of Liverpool, UK.