A distributed process control system based on multi-agent

In modern process industry, the control theory met several new problems such as distribution, robustness and flexibility, island automation, higher performance requirements and the like, which are very difficult for traditional control method. To solve those problems, this paper gives a brief review of the process control and multi-agent theory in process control, and proposes a new design method of intelligent control system based on multi-agent theory. The presented control system includes four kinds of unit agent with the respective terms actuate agent, coordinate agent, manage agent and user agent corresponding to the process industrial enterprise organization. It is open, distributed and flexible, and can be implemented with the developing internet/intranet technology. This is a new approach for solving the problem of island automation. Finally, several key problems and the research fields that will be met in the following investigation are given.