A flexible manufacturing system (FMS) is a complex manufacturing system and it demands a robust control software for its scheduling, planning and control functions. This paper describes the development of an agent‐based infrastructure for the control of a cellular FMS. The FMS in this project is a flexible assembly cell (FAC), comprising two assembly robots and a conveyor system. The aim is to establish a multi‐agent control system with good expandability and to be able to cope with dynamic changes in the FAC. The proposed agent‐based FAC control system comprises a collection of agents implemented in a distributed control network. The approach of the agent design is based on the object‐oriented modelling technique. According to the proposed control architecture, a standard agent template has been designed for the establishment of individual agents in the agent‐based system.

A flexible manufacturing system (FMS) is a complex manufacturing system, which demands a robust control software for its scheduling, planning and control functions. This study considers the applications of multi-agent systems (MAS) in FMS control systems. Its aim was to establish a new hybrid-based approach in the design and analysis of agent-based FMS control systems. The proposed hybrid approach is based on the UML (Unified Modelling Language) and CPN (Coloured Petri Net) modeling technologies. The UML modeling methodology was adopted in the design and specification of the MAS-based FMS control systems and the individual agent. A mapping mechanism was developed to convert the UML views into CPN models. The CPN models can then be used to represent the dynamic behavior and interactions of agents in the MAS. In the corresponding CPN model, resource allocation by agents is represented by the color tokens. Three different flexible assembly cell (FAC) configurations were used as examples of manufacturing systems. According to a simple FAC configuration, a generic Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION

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