Agent-based control of rapidly reconfigurable material handling system

Rapidly reconfigurable manufacturing systems (RRMS) are acknowledged to serve the needs of the manufacturing companies for handling the shortening product life cycles and mass customization. Reconfigurability aspects are important for achieving short configuration times and adjustable, production volumes in automation systems. This paper discusses on material handling system (MHS) where the rapid reconfigurability has taken into main objectives of the developed system. The developed MHS is built on full-functional modules that are represented by intelligent physical agents and uses ABAS architectural definitions. The developed MHS presents solution where software and hardware reconfigurability aspects have been addressed.