Distributed Simulation Using Agents for the Internet of Things and the Factory of the Future

Mohammed Basingab,Hatim Bukhari,Ahmad Rahal,Khalid Nagadi,Fahad Alasim

doi:10.3390/info11100458

Abstract

The adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT) and its related technologies has transformed the manufacturing industry and has significantly changed the traditional linear manufacturing supply chains into dynamic and interconnected systems. However, the lack of an approach to assess the economic feasibility and return uncertainties of an IoT system implementation, is blamed as the culprit for hindering its adoption rate. Using two distinctive case studies, this research investigates the use of distributed simulation of agent-based model (ABM) to address such gap in the literature. The first involves the economic feasibility of an IoT implementation in a very large retail warehouse facility, while the second case study proposes a framework able to generate and assess ideal or near-ideal manufacturing configurations and capabilities, and in establishing appropriate information messaging protocols between the various system components by using ABM in distributed simulation.

Highlights

The breath taking technological advances of the second half of the 20th century, and the unprecedented breakthroughs in computing and communication technologies witnessed the advent of a new paradigm, or Internet of Things (IoT), where Internet-connected devices or things are empowered to receive instruction and disseminate information with little or no human interaction [1]
This study investigates the use of the distributed simulation using agents for the Internet of Things and the factory of the future
The Base Case model of agent-based model (ABM) shows that the annual food waste and repair cost is $865,870.241 ±

Summary

Introduction

The breath taking technological advances of the second half of the 20th century, and the unprecedented breakthroughs in computing and communication technologies witnessed the advent of a new paradigm, or Internet of Things (IoT), where Internet-connected devices or things are empowered to receive instruction and disseminate information with little or no human interaction [1]. ABM is a powerful tool to study the behavior of complex distributed systems [3] such as IoT, with the flexibility to move elements of the modeled system [4], the ability to adopt new constrains [5], the capability of incorporating the details of human behavior, and of imitating a system’s interactions and dynamics. ABM can be a valuable tool to obtain significant insight about a possible solution, explore the dynamical behaviors of the model. It helps with testing the dependence of outcomes on assumptions and parameters for a system with a mathematical model that can be written but not solved entirely, or has a numerous equations [7]

Results

Discussion

Conclusion