Dynamic Replanning using Multi-Agent Systems and Asset Administration Shells

Abstract

To improve the fault tolerance of production systems against unforeseen events, modern production systems must be able to react more autonomously with suitable solutions to reach their goals. Such events within the company, e.g., resource breakdowns, require the possibility of internal replanning of the production schedule. Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) can provide this required flexibility. To enable standardized interaction for agents, a vendor-independent description of products and production equipment, as well as their capabilities and skills, must be developed. The Asset Administration Shell (AAS) provides the standardized meta-model to achieve this goal. In this paper, a product AAS and the submodel for the required production plan are designed. Moreover, the associated MAS and interaction for the execution and replanning of the production sequence are presented. The system is validated using an assembly use-case in the real-world demonstrator environment of the SmartFactory <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">KL</sup> . Combining the concepts of MAS with the standardized structures of the AAS, skills and capabilities tackles the problem of MAS to be deployed in different companies. This approach enables widespread use and scalability of MAS leveraging their advantages in terms of flexibility and efficient reconfiguration.