Ant stigmergy shop floor control architecture for intelligent product oriented manufacturing system

In this paper we consider an alternative approach to the problem of infusing local shop floor control decisions with more global performance information. The approach proposed is that of using artificial ant colonies to decentralize and autonomize the shop floor routing. The proposed ant stigmergy shop floor control (ASSFC) has two functional levels: a virtual shop floor level in which ant agents explore optimal processing route stochastically, and a physical shop floor in which intelligent work pieces (IWPs) deterministically exploit the best paths that have been detected by their corresponding ant agents on virtual shop floor. The simple indirect communication and the robust adaptability to disturbances make the ASSFC more suitable for intelligent product oriented manufacturing system than tradition shop floor control.