A multi-agent based approach to dynamic scheduling of machines and automated guided vehicles in manufacturing systems

In real manufacturing environments, the control of system elements such as automated guided vehicles has some difficulties when planning operations dynamically. Multi agent-based systems, a newly maturing area of distributed artificial intelligence, provide some effective mechanisms for the management of such dynamic operations in manufacturing environments. This paper proposes a multi-agent based scheduling approach for automated guided vehicles and machines within a manufacturing system. The proposed multi-agent based approach works under a real-time environment and generates feasible schedules using negotiation/bidding mechanisms between agents. This approach is tested on off-line scheduling problems from the literature. The results show that our approach is capable of generating good schedules in real time comparable with the optimization algorithms and the frequently used dispatching rules.

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► A new multi-agent based approach is proposed for dynamic scheduling of manufacturing systems.
► The proposed agent based system is able to dynamically schedule machines and AGVs concurrently.
► The performance of the proposed system is compared with several static optimization algorithms and dispatching rules.
► Although the proposed system is not optimization based its performance is acceptable and better in some situations.