Modeling and control of holonic manufacturing systems based on extended contract net protocol

Abstract

This paper focuses on conflict resolution and control in the context of holonic manufacturing systems based on cooperative agents. Holonic manufacturing systems requires a robust mechanism to dynamically allocate the available resources to achieve the production goal. Conflicts among agents usually occur when multi-agent framework is applied to control manufacturing systems. Conflicts take place if more than two agents requesting the same resources to carry out their actions. An effective conflict resolution mechanism to dynamically and robustly allocate available resources to achieve the goal of production is the key to optimization of performance and resource utilization. In this paper, a framework is proposed to adaptively synthesize Petri Nets to control holonic manufacturing systems based on the contract net protocol to resolve conflicts and Petri Nets to model the system and test feasibility of commitment.