Title: Hypothetical reasoning approach for Automated Guided Vehicle action decision in Autonomous Decentralised Flexible Manufacturing Systems

Authors: Rizauddin Ramli, Hidehiko Yamamoto, Jaber Abu Qudeiri

Addresses: Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 UKM Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia. ' Intelligent Manufacturing Systems Laboratory, Faculty of Engineering, Gifu University, 1-1 Yanagido, Gifu-city 501-1121, Japan. ' Intelligent Manufacturing Systems Laboratory, Faculty of Engineering, Gifu University, 1-1 Yanagido, Gifu-city 501-1121, Japan

Abstract: This paper presents an approach of hypothetical reasoning for action decision of Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV) in Autonomous Decentralised Flexible Manufacturing Systems (AD-FMS). The AD-FMS is characterised as being online, in real-time mode and of a short-term nature that responds to frequent changing of the production order. The decentralised control in AD-FMS enables to solve dynamically some typical task of production system without using a fixed centralised control system. We adopt a hypothetical reasoning approach that will decide the conceivable next action from the competition hypothesis. Simulation results show that the efficiency of AGV in AD-FMS increased.

Keywords: automated guided vehicles; AGVs; flexible manufacturing systems; decentralised FMS; hypothetical reasoning; decision making; decentralised control; simulation; autonomous FMS.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISTA.2009.026086

International Journal of Intelligent Systems Technologies and Applications, 2009 Vol.7 No.2, pp.171 - 187

Published online: 26 May 2009 *

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