Intelligent and reconfigurable control of automatic production line by applying IEC61499 function blocks and software agent

Reconfigurable control of automation production line by integrating IEC61499 function block based low level physical machines with planning and schedule multi agent manufacturing platform is studied. Based on respective investigation of reconfigurable control philosophy of these two levels, integration strategies are concluded as transplanting function block based machines control into upper intelligent manufacturing platform. Requirements for the integration are intelligence attachment to function block based lower level control, coordination between intelligence with real time control, and unified engineering development environment. To satisfy this requirement, four layer intelligent integration architecture of reconfigurable control for physical machines is proposed, that is low level function block production network tie, device real time communication tie, device production data tie and device intelligent coordination tie. Unified reconfigurable control execution is explained based on integrating this layer structure with upper intelligent multi agent environment.