Past, Present, and Future of Industrial Agent Applications

Industrial agents technology leverages the benefits of multiagent systems, distributed computing, artificial intelligence techniques and semantics in the field of production, services and infrastructure sectors, providing a new way to design and engineer control solutions based on the decentralization of control over distributed structures. The key drivers for this application are the benefits of agent-based industrial systems, namely in terms of robustness, scalability, reconfigurability and productivity, all of which translate to a greater competitive advantage. This manuscript monitors the chronology of research and development of the industrial applications of multiagent and holonic systems. It provides the comprehensive overview of methodologies, architectures and applications of agents in industrial domain from early nineties up to present. It also gives an outlook of the current trends as well as challenges and possible future application domains of industrial agents.