Holonic Control Research Articles

A team-based holonic approach to robotic assembly cell control

Holonic systems are systems that are modelled in terms of components (holons) that have their own unique identity but are part of a larger whole. This larger whole is known as a holarchy. The manufacturing community has recognised the potential benefits of the holonic approach and it has attracted much interest over the past decade. This paper describes elements of a reference model for holonic manufacturing systems in which holons are characterised by the services that they provide and the services that they require other holons to perform on their behalf. In addition, individual holon behaviours are specified in terms of services, providing the ability for behaviours to be specified in a resource independent manner. We expect that this will result in the construction of systems that are easier to understand, extend and modify. An implementation of the model for the control of an industrial strength manufacturing system is described. An interesting feature of the manufacturing system is that the existing controllers are retained, thus demonstrating that holonic control can be implemented using conventional control hardware.

Framework for the control of automated material-handling systems using the holonic manufacturing approach

In today's global economy, manufacturing companies must be able to change both the product variety and production quantity without incurring major disturbances in the production process. A manufacturing system capable of performing these changes efficiently needs a control system flexible enough to go from one state to another without significant delays in production. To compensate for the deficiencies of both hierarchical and heterarchical control systems, a control architecture based on the holonic concept is proposed. After presenting the general holonic control architecture, the paper focuses on the integration of the holonic-based control concept in the design of an automated material-handling control system. When performing transport activities in a manufacturing system, due to its architecture, the holonic system can operate both as a hierarchical system, following a predefined schedule during normal operation conditions, and as a heterarchical system in the presence of disturbances.

Industrial Applications of the Agent-Based Technology

The paper is aimed at summarizing the current state-of-the-art in development of the agent-based solutions in three areas connected with industrial production, namely in holonic control, production management and virtual enterprises. It is shown how the results in these three sub-areas converge and that the agent-oriented technology could provide a good background for developing a unifying approach. Two industrial applications of agent-based systems are described in more details. Both the positive and negative aspects of applying the agent-based solutions in industry are discussed.

Agent-based holonic design and operations environment for distributed manufacturing

This paper describes a practical system framework for holonic design and operations in a distributed manufacturing environment using multi-agent systems (MASs) and simulation techniques. Three components are proposed and developed in this system: holonic control, virtual simulation, and human/system integration. With the common system goal as the objective, the holonic control, established upon the JADE™ platform in a distributed method, acts as the brain of the entire system. The virtual simulation simulates actions and operations of the physical devices under the holonic control. While the human/system integration facilitates human experts’ interaction with the system to choose or override the system’s holonic solution. A conceptual material transport system is developed to demonstrate and validate the proposed idea. These key attributes of holonic manufacturing system (HMS), such as robustness when faced with perturbation, autonomous, cooperation and coordination were tested and validated in this open and distributed environment. It shows that the proposed system can satisfy the agility, distribution, and robustness requirements.

Holonic coordination and control of an automated guided vehicle system

Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV) systems typically utilize a central controller to assign transportation tasks among vehicles. Because of their rigidity, centralized architectures are not suitable fo...

A system architecture for holonic manufacturing planning and control (EtoPlan)

In this paper, we present the system architecture of a flexible manufacturing planning and control system, named EtoPlan. The concept is based on the holonic control approach of building multiple and temporary hierarchies (holarchies). This paper describes the system architecture for flexible planning and control of activities and (groups of) Resources in a manufacture-to-order environment. The system architecture consists of generic control modules that can be applied on different hierarchical levels and for different kinds of manufacturing activities. The main function of the Resource Controller is the Determine Applicability function.

IT tools to improve the performance of metalworking SMEs

The small manufacturing enterprise is typically recognized as a company that is heavily reliant on its human constituents, namely the skilled manufacturing operators who accept a high level of responsibility for the parts they produce, and also have a major influence on the existence of the company. The significant reduction in costs of IT technology and software tools over recent years has enabled the SME to use hardware and software systems that were previously only available to larger companies. This paper investigates the use of modern IT tools and their application within a metalworking SME. The work is based on a number of major research areas, namely the holonic manufacturing paradigm, distributed planning and control, and open controllers for CNC control. The major emphasis of the paper is the design of appropriate IT tools tailored for the requirements of 'human-centred manufacturing systems' based on holonic concepts to support an autonomous cooperative working environment.

Realizing holonic control with function blocks

Future manufacturing systems will be required to be agile, flexible and fault-tolerant. Development of these next-generation systems will not only require new approaches, but also new ways of thinking about these systems. This paper describes a real-

Intelligent control for holonic manufacturing systems

To enable holonic manufacturing systems (HMS) to have their desired characteristics of adaptability and reconfigurability, their control systems need to be dynamically reconfigurable. An holonic control system implementing metamorphic mechanisms which facilitate such reconfiguration has therefore been developed conceptually and is presented in this paper. An integrated and generic event-driven control architecture is described for the various functional levels of this distributed holonic control system. The architecture utilizes the emerging IEC 1499 function block standard to specify the requisite behaviour of the distributed-control software components. The core low-level control mechanisms have been implemented within an agent-based distributed real-time operating system and a prototype holonic control system using the new architecture has been developed and tested.

Hierarchy in distributed shop floor control

This discussion paper examines the role of hierarchy within the domain of shop floor control in manufacturing plants. Specifically, three distinct structures for shop floor control are considered, namely, hierarchical, heterarchical and holonic control systems. Holonic manufacturing is a novel paradigm for manufacturing that tries to merge the best properties of both hierarchical and heterarchical systems, namely, a high and predictable performance with a high robustness against disturbances. The paper identifies the concept of hierarchy in distributed shop floor control as one of the key contributions of holonic manufacturing. In a holonic architecture, the mapping of functions to control units remains flexible, such that decision power can be distributed over these units as needed. Based on the invariants concept of computer science, a modelling framework is proposed to identify the decision making needs of each unit. It can be used not only to describe the behaviour of the system, but also to impose performance and operational guarantees.

Design and implementation of a real-time holonic control system for manufacturing

This paper describes a new approach to low-level process/machine control for manufacturing that is based on the holonic manufacturing systems (HMSs) paradigm. The primary motivation for this work is the requirement for manufacturing systems that can automatically and intelligently adapt to changes in the manufacturing environment while still achieving overall system goals. To meet this requirement, a low-level architecture for distributed process/machine control is described that is dynamically reconfigurable and supports distributed applications based on the IEC-1499 function block (FB) standard. To evaluate the feasibility of this new approach, a prototype system based on this architecture is described and performance results are reported.

An architecture for Agile Shop Floor control systems

Abstract Changes in markets and global business trends affect the manufacturing environment in infinite ways. These changes have brought about the need for a paradigm shift to reassess the manner in which manufacturing systems are developed and operated. New theories and concepts present solutions to enable manufacturing systems to accommodate the increasing dynamic characteristics of the manufacturing environment. Regarding these new concepts, specifically holonic manufacturing systems, there are many aspects that should be considered. One of the aspects is the manufacturing system and its control, commonly known as shop floor control. This paper presents the Holonic Multi-cell Control System (HoMuCS) architecture that allows for design and development of holonic shop floor control systems. The HoMuCS is a shop floor control system which is sometimes referred to as a manufacturing execution system that is inherently agile. This agility is achieved through two performance parameters: operational agility, allowing for operational change; and structural agility, allowing for structural changes and reconfiguration.

HSCF: A holonic shop floor control framework for flexible manufacturing systems

As the existing control architectures for FMS have many problems with respect to flexibility, re-configuration and software development, which become worse as the system size increases, the international IMS research programme proposed a new manufacturing philosophy called the Holonic Manufacturing System (HMS). Under the notion of HMS, manufacturing systems are built from a modular mix of standardised, autonomous and co-operative agents called holons. Inspired by such emerging concept, we carried out this research with the aim of devising a holonic control framework, which is suitable for future FMS shop floor scheduling and control. This paper addresses the design of the proposed framework as well as the underlying holonic philosophy. In order to verify the applicability of the framework, an experimental simulation system has been developed on a real-time and distributed computer platform. The system consists of a set of holon prototypes capable of performing real-time scheduling for both manufacturing and transportation tasks, and a collection of interacting software modules that assist the simulation running on these prototypes. Experimental results acquired from the simulation have demonstrated that the framework is extensible and re-configurable. Implementation of the simulation system also provides direction and a workable foundation for further research and development on HMS.

Designing Holonic manufacturing systems

This paper discusses the design of Holonic manufacturing systems (HMS), with emphasis on manufacturing control. First, it discusses the concept of a Holonic system. Second, it presents the HMS reference architecture for manufacturing control. Third, it addresses the overall design problem, i.e. designing both the holonic control system and the underlying manufacturing system. Finally, the paper addresses the design and development of the control software itself.

A holonic control system based on a universal learning network

A holonic control system based on a universal learning network

A holonic control system based on a universal learning network

A new control method is presented using the holonic concept on a universal learning network (ULN). The holonic concept was proposed by Arthur Koestler in 1905. Its aim is to harmonize entire systems with partial systems that have hierarchal structures. On the other hand, a ULN that models and controls large-scale complicated systems such as industrial plants and, economic, social, and life phenomena is proposed. In this paper, a holonic control system based on the holonic concept and ULN is presented. From simulation results from a nonlinear crane system, it has been proved that holonic control can harmonize the system rather than optimize it, which used to be the conventional method in control engineering. © 1998 Scripta Technica, Electr Eng Jpn, 124(4): 64–72, 1998

Holonic Control for Manufacturing Systems: Functional Design of a Manufacturing Robot Cell

The “holonic” concept was proposed in the late 1960s as the basis for modeling highly flexible and dynamic systems. This paper considers the holonic concept and its possibilities in designing next generation manufacturing systems. The holonic concept

How to Improve the Productivity of a Reactive Method of Control for a Flexible Manufacturing Ring

this article deals with a Flexible Manufacturing System. It is composed of a transportation ring (continious transportation) and a set of workstation (with private FIFO). Most of the research try to apply the best control policy for a given layout. Most of those policies are heavy to implemente, and expensive to maintain. The paper shows that even the simplest holonic control policy can give very good results, if the layout is correct. An. heuristic is presented, to find a good layout, depending on the desired production rates. cet article présente un système de production flexible constitué d'un anneau de transport et d'un ensemble de pastes possédant chacun sa propre file d'attente. La plupart des recherches effectuées tentent de trouver la meilleure politique de conduite pour une implantation donnée. L'implémentation de ces politiques est souvent difficile et leur évolution est coûteuse. Ce papier montre que même la politique de pilotage holonique la plus simple peut donner de très bons résultats en terrne de productivité, si l'implantation est convenable. Une heuristique est présentée pour trouver une bonne irnplantation en fonction des taux de production désirés par type de produits.