Fuzzy logic enabled software agents for supervisory control

Programs for contemporary industrial control systems are designed using an object oriented methods and software agents. It is required that the system should reach its objectives even when unexpected events occur in an uncertain environment. A trend is that agents are becoming more autonomous, more complex and are having more responsibilities. There is a need for a high-level information representation such that a predictable behavior can be achieved in a uniform way for all agents. A fuzzy automaton-based approach offers clear benefits for developing agents of reconfigurable architecture. This paper reports on a research project that is currently underway to develop a generic encapsulated fuzzy automaton software agent for object oriented control systems. A laboratory has been set up to develop and evaluate the performance of new methods and architectures.