Dynamic restructuring process for self-reconfiguration in the fractal manufacturing system

Abstract

To meet the rapidly changing customer needs in the manufacturing environment, future manufacturing systems must be dynamically and flexibly reconfigured. The fractal manufacturing system (FrMS) is one of the new manufacturing paradigms that can meet such requirements. The basic component of the FrMS is referred to as a fractal. Consisting of self-similar agents, each fractal autonomously cooperates and negotiates with others to coordinate its tasks. Dynamic restructuring process (DRP) supports reorganization of the system configurations so that the FrMS can be adapted to dynamically changing environments. Although traditional approaches have endeavoured to demonstrate reconfigurability of a manufacturing system, they are not accurate enough to meet the requirements of circumstances such as high-level autonomy in reconfiguring the system architecture. In this paper, therefore, the DRP, which embodies self-reconfigurability of a system, is proposed focusing on the FrMS. To check the effectiveness of the DRP, we have developed the FrMS test bed and conducted the experimentation on the DRP. A simulation study has been conducted to show the effectiveness of the DRP under an illustrative situation.

Keywords:

• Dynamic restructuring process (DRP)
• Fractal
• Fractal manufacturing system (FrMS)
• Multi-agent

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Korea Research Foundation Grant funded by the Korean Government (MOEHRD, Basic Research Promotion Fund) (M01-2004-000-20378-0). We would like to express our gratitude for their support. We would also like to thank the anonymous referees who reviewed this work. Their comments have helped to significantly improve the paper.