Re: advise please

[Andrew Sherlock]

> I am interested in applying swarm technology to both control
> system tuning/optimisation and fault diagnosis. Has anyone
> encountered any similar research in this field? 
> 
> regards
> 


Hi,

Here in Edinburgh we have been using Swarm on a few 
recent projects involving optimization/control in manufacturing
and Mechanical engineering. 

One involves the use of agents for warehouse management.
This involves using agents in Swarm both to do a discrete-event 
simulation of the warehouse and to follow simple rules to 
control/optimize pallet positions and picking order etc..

The second project uses a cellular shape representation for 
structural shape optimization. Each cell is implemented as 
a Swarm agent and responds to stress, position and the states of
nearby cells in order to 'optimise'  the component shape.

The third project looked at using an agent-based approach to 
feature-based design. Basically each manufacturing feature of a 
design is an agent responsible for ensuring its own 
manufacturability. It can negociate with other conflicting 
feature-agents to  change its position and/or geometry in order to
achieve this.

We are interested in starting some projects here using Swarm to look
at dynamic simulation and control/optimization of manufacturing
systems. We are at an early stage of developing ideas for this.

You might be interested in work being undertaken at KU Leuven in the
Division of Production Engineering, Machine Design & Automation :

http://www.mech.kuleuven.ac.be/pma/project/mascada/welcome.html

They are not using Swarm but use a cooperative multi-agent approach to
shop-floor control and scheduling etc.. They call it 'Holonic
Manufacturing'.

Hope this is helpful,
Andy
 
Andrew Sherlock

Lecturer in Manufacturing and Management
Manufacturing Planning Group
School of Mechanical Engineering 
The University of Edinburgh
King's Buildings
EDINBURGH 
EH9 3JL
UK
tel ++44 (0)131 650 8696
fax ++44 (0)131 667 3677
email address@hidden
web http://www.mech.ed.ac.uk


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