Research on the multi-agent model of autonomous distributed control systems

When designing a large-scale system, it is more effective to consider the system as a set of sub-systems, and to design each sub-system and its relations respectively. Modern manufacturing systems are becoming larger and more complex and demanding more flexibility. To consider the control of such systems, it would be difficult to apply traditional centralized control because of the deficiencies in robustness and flexibility. The concept of decentralized control is being adopted. Many researchers find that the multi-agent model is suitable for such decentralized control. Our research is concerned with applying the theory of multi-agent models to autonomous distributed manufacturing systems.