A product handling technical architecture for multiagent-based mechatronic systems

In recent years a set of production paradigms has emerged to circumvent pressing production challenges. In particular the ability of composing lower order components to form higher order entities with more complex functionalities and reuse them to build yet more complex system has been widely explored. However material handling aspects have been tackled independently of the control/reconfiguration architecture. Traditionally transport resources have been assumed passive and the organization of the production has been treated as a scheduling problems that often ignores disturbances in the transport system. This renders most of the scheduling approaches too theoretical to be applied in real production scenarios and has motivated researchers to pursuit alternative approaches to this sort of production organization problems. In this paper a technical agent-based architecture that integrates control/reconfiguration aspects with material handling is detailed. The architecture supports the simultaneous usage of conveyor and AGV-based material handling systems and the addition of production or material handling resources is handled in a transparent way through careful generic interaction design. Overall the proposed architecture can be applied to any mechatronic system favouring re-configuration and minimizing reprogramming.