Activities Reports--> New TC on Collaborative Agent Systems and Distributed Automation

New TC on Collaborative Agent Systems

and Distributed Automation

• Co-Chairs
  Dilip Kotak
  William Gruver
  
• Core Technologies and Subcommittee chairs:
  Systems Architecture – Bellifemine Fabio
  Intelligent Monitoring and Active Identification – Duncan McFarlane
  Intelligent Communications – Ljiljana Trajkovic
  Intelligent Collaboration and Coordination – Vladimir Marik
  
• Key Application Sectors and Chairs
  Manufacturing and Supply Chains – Paul Valckenaers
  Service – Kazuhiko Kawamura
  Infrastructure (Electrical Power) – Peter Luh
  Infrastructure (Transportation) – Tsu-Tian Lee

The committee will have a matrix structure represented by four core technologies versus three application areas.

Mission

The mission of this committee is to provide a forum where researchers and application sector specialists can come together to continue the development and application of collaborative agents in distributed manufacturing, services and infrastructure sectors. The committee will provide a continuing base to many researchers who have been participating in national and international projects under the auspices of IMS and other organizations building on the knowledge-base created by these early efforts. The key drivers for this effort are the benefits of such collaborative systems, namely: robustness, scalability, re-configurability and productivity, all of which translate to a greater competitive advantage. One project carried within the Holonic Manufacturing Systems showed that collaborative agents or holons can enable a physical line that would be scalable in production by 70% and has a 40% greater productivity. Similar opportunities exist in supply chains, service sectors and infrastructure systems. Increased robustness in the face of perturbations will provide an added measure of security in today’s uncertain world.

The role of the committee is to develop strategies for supporting manufacturing systems developments, to assist in developing an integrated understanding of future systems needs for the sector, and to provide forums and opportunities for members to exchange ideas, knowledge, experience, learning and results in this area. Manufacturing, services and infrastructures are all moving through a rapid and continual process of redefinition driven by demanding markets, globally competition and rapid technological change. These drivers manifest themselves in terms of more frequent product and service changes, greater customization, relentless improvements in cost, quality and reliability and infrastructure that must be both flexible and readily re-configurable both physically and in terms of their information systems.

The role of SMC in these developments is both critical and timely. Isolated and successful developments have occurred over the last decades and will continue to occur. This committee will provide a continuing forum for researchers, systems developers and users to come together and deal with key issues, such as:

• Integrated systems are needed to ensure that the current available physical capabilities can be best exploited by management and decision-makers.
• Under many circumstances, people are the best decision-makers under rapidly changing conditions provided they receive timely and appropriate computing support.
• Increasingly, biological and cybernetic based solution methods (neural nets, genetic algorithms, intelligent agents, holonic systems, bionic manufacturing) are being examined as more flexible approaches for dealing with production environments where team based empowerment has replaced hierarchical command control. This new approach has made the traditional Computer Integrated Manufacturing based IT architectures obsolete and given way for flatter, bus based information networks with powerful and distributed computing elements.

Planned Activities (2004).

Organize a two day focused workshop during the May 2004 in Como, Italy.

• Develop a track formed around key invited sessions, panel discussions, and a tutorial at SMC 2004. The papers will include all four core technology areas and their integrated applications in the three application sectors.
• Develop a Special Issue of the IEEE Transactions on SMC, Part C, presenting the theme of this committee, its seven core areas and selected papers from the SMC 2003 and SMC 2004 meetings and the planned workshop in 2004.

---- by Wil Thissen