Ontology-based reconfiguration agent for intelligent mechatronic systems in flexible manufacturing

This paper proposes a novel approach to achieving fast reconfiguration of modular manufacturing systems, based on an ontology-based reconfiguration agent. The agent uses ontological knowledge of the manufacturing environment for the purpose of reconfiguration without human intervention. The current mass customization era requires increased flexibility and agility in the manufacturing systems to adapt changes in manufacturing requirements and environments. Our configuration agent minimises the overheads of the current reconfiguration process by automating it. It infers facts about the manufacturing environment from the ontological knowledge model and then decides whether the current environment can support the given manufacturing requirements. This paper proposes the agent architecture enabling the integration between the high level planning with the distributed low level control compliant with the upcoming IEC 61499 function blocks standard. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.