In many applications, large centralized software systems are not as effective as distributed networks of relatively simpler computerized agents. For example, to compete effectively in today's markets, manufacturers must be able to design, implement, reconfigure, resize, and maintain manufacturing facilities rapidly and inexpensively. Because modern manufacturing depends heavily on computer systems, these same requirements apply to manufacturing control software, and are more easily satisfied by small modules than by large monolithic systems. This paper reviews industrial needs for Multi Agent Systems.
Multi-agent systems offer a way to relax the constraints of centralized, planned, sequential control, though not every multi-agent system takes full advantage of this potential. They offer production systems that are decentralized rather than centralized, emergent rather than planned, and concurrent rather than sequential (Stuart, 2002).
The autonomous agent approach replaces a centralized database and control computer with a network of agents, each endowed with a local view of its environment and the ability and authority to respond locally to that environment. The overall system performance is not globally planned, but emerges through the dynamic interaction of the agents in real-time. Thus the system does not alternate between cycles of scheduling and execution (Stuart, 2002). Rather, the schedule emerges from the concurrent independent decisions of the local agents.
On the one hand, the autonomous agent approach may face some disadvantages. Theoretical optima cannot be guaranteed. Predictions for autonomous systems can usually be made only at the aggregate level. In principle, systems of autonomous agents can become computationally unstable. The degree of seriousness of these challenges needs to be assessed empirically: the optima computed by conventional systems may not be realizable in practice, and the more detailed predictions that conventional approaches permit are often invalidated by the real world.
On the other hand, an autonomous approach appears to offer some significant advantages over conventional systems..................
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