FREEPASS as a testbed for a distributed autonomous manufacturing system

A feasibility study under the intelligent manufacturing system (IMS) programme began in Japan during 1991 to investigate and study the manufacturing systems in the next century. This report covers one of the feasibility study projects under the IMS programme-distributed autonomous manufacturing systems (DAMS). The purpose of DAMS is the research and development of the infrastructure of future production systems that are easily, rapidly, and economically capable of change. This report focuses on the architecture of FREEPASS as a testbed for DAMS.