A Multi-agent Control Framework for Automated Material Handling

摘要

The human immune system is a self-organized and fully distributed multi-agent system. This biological theory imparts a high degree of robustness that has created great interest in implementing engineering systems based on its properties. This adopted engineering analogue is commonly known as Artificial Immune System (AIS). Inspired from these appealing properties of AIS, a multi-agent-based control framework implements a self-organizing distributed system for controlling fleets of autonomous guided vehicles (AGVs) with schedule arising as an emergent behavior due to the local interaction between AGVs is proposed for automated material handling systems. In addition, the paper presents the results of a simulation study on a material handling system with a large number of cooperating AGVs that operate in an automated warehouse.