Using a discrete-event system formalism for the multi-agent control of manufacturing systems

In the area of Heterarchical Manufacturing Systems modelling and control, a relatively new paradigm is that of Multi-Agent Systems. Many efforts have been made to define the autonomous agents concurrently operating in the system and the relations between them. But few results in the current literature define a formal and unambiguous way to model a Multi-Agent System, which can be used for the real-time simulation and control of flexible manufacturing environments. To this aim, this paper extends and develops some results previously obtained by the same authors, to define a discrete event system model of the main distributed agents controlling a manufacturing system. The main mechanism of interaction between three classes of agents is presented.