Design and implementation of an agent-based shop floor control system using Windows-DNA

Heterarchical shop floor control systems have had more attention than other forms of control systems over the last decade, as they promise modularity, robustness, fault-tolerance, maintainability, extendibility and cost-reduction. This paper presents design and implementation of an agentbased, heterarchical shop floor control system using an industrial framework, Windows-DNA. A model for adapting agent-based systems to the three-tier architecture of Window-DNA is proposed. The details of the design in each tier of the model are presented and the critical issues that should be considered for the ultimate harmony of an agent-based system with DNA are addressed. The designed system is implemented in an experimental manufacturing cell and example views of the human interfaces in action are presented.