Evaluating machine agent coupling of reactive and planning-based control architectures for manufacturing

The paper focuses on investigations into the relative performance of reactive and planning based control architectures with a focus on the control system performance and the notion of meta-control (i.e., the use of control architecture performance data to advise on the best architecture for given performance objectives). The work is intended to provide insights into why partial hierarchies of decision makers (i.e., planning based architectures) perform better than pure heterarchies of decision makers (i.e., reactive architectures) and how this information can be used in a dynamically evolving control architecture such as a holonic manufacturing system