Rapid Deployment Scheme for MAS-based Applications within Industry 4.0 Framework

In the past decades, the trend of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) has been sweeping the world, which implies a huge revolution for the social industrial production patterns. Multiagent system (MAS) technology could provide more flexible and customized manufacturing under the turbulent demand. However, the construction and commissioning of the MAS-based control implementations could be hard tasks for developers. To tackle this problem, a rapid deployment scheme for MAS-based control implementations has been proposed in this paper, which includes three layers: the topology of MAS, the unique control strategy of each entity, and the bottom control system. The communication protocol inside the architecture has been predefined and the interfaces have been reserved for further definition. The proposed deployment scheme is verified through a practical instance of cooperative speeding control. It is believed that the scheme could provide the deployment with high efficiency, versatility, and convenience, which would benefit the industrial manufacturing within Industry 4.0 framework in the near future.