Paper Info
Title
A distributed multi-agent production planning and scheduling framework for mobile robots
Abstract
Inspired by the new achievements in mobile robotics having as a result mobile robots able to execute different production tasks, we consider a factory producing a set of distinct products via or with the additional help of mobile robots. This particularly flexible layout requires the definition and the solution of a complex planning and scheduling problem. In order to minimize production costs, dynamic determination of the number of robots for each production task and the individual robot allocation are needed. We propose a solution in terms of a two-level decentralized Multi-Agent System (MAS) framework: at the first, production planning level, agents are tasks which compete for robots (resources at this level); at the second, scheduling level, agents are robots which reallocate themselves among different tasks to satisfy the requests coming from the first level. An iterative auction based negotiation protocol is used at the first level while the second level solves a Multi-Robot Task Allocation (MRTA) problem through a distributed version of the Hungarian Method. A comparison of the results with a centralized approach is presented.
Year
DOI
Venue
2013
10.1016/j.cie.2012.09.004
Computers & Industrial Engineering
Keywords
Field
DocType
multi-agent production planning,mobile robot,production planning level,mobile robotics,complex planning,scheduling framework,production task,different production task,result mobile robot,production cost,different task,scheduling problem,multi agent system
Hungarian algorithm,Job shop scheduling,Scheduling (computing),Multi-agent system,Production planning,Artificial intelligence,Engineering,Robot,Mobile robot,Operations management,Robotics
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
64
1
0360-8352
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
10
0.62
23
Authors
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Stefano Giordani118317.55
Marin Lujak29815.72
F. Martinelli313115.50