Highly reconfigurable production systems controlled by real-time agents

Flexible plant components can significantly increase the flexibility of manufacturing systems and enable concepts like mass-customized production. This paper presents an approach for production planning and execution for flexible manufacturing system components, based on software agents. The agents are implemented directly on a PLC, making them capable of real-time operation. Additionally, a service-interface contributes to the vertical integration of the approach into the higher level planning of a flexible production system. Using the presented software agents, flexible plant components can be fully automated and integrated in modern FMS, leading to a higher degree of flexibility and dependability of the overall system. The approach is evaluated on a flexible fixture device as a FMS component, capable of automatic reconfiguration.