A New Technique for Modeling and Implementation of Agent-Based Discrete Industrial Automation

摘要

In shop floors dominated by Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs), the implementation of flexible control has been held back due to difficulties in generation and modifications of the PLC code. This paper presents a technique that not only automates the generation of PLC code and its modification, but also integrates it into the framework of process planning and scheduling. The purpose of this technique is to enable a specific set of software agents to automate the specification, generation, validation, and implementation of discrete shop-floor control systems. We discuss the proposed framework of five software agents that interact with each other to plan, model, and implement, flexible manufacturing using current control equipment (I.e. PLCs). The framework specifies the roles and rough communication protocols of each agent. The efficient communication and operation is based on a new technique used to model, validate and generate the PLC code. This technique is vital for the operation and communication of the agents. We named this technique Three Levels Approach (TLA) to reflect the three levels of detail used to describe the manufacturing process. The TLA takes into account all possible states, it avoids deadlock, it eliminates the need to check all the systems states, it could be translated to PLC code and it has graphic representation so it is easily followed and understood.