A self-organisation model for mobile robots in large structure assembly using multi-agent systems

Mobile, self-organising robots are seen to be a possible solution to over-come the current limitations of fixed, dedicated automation systems particularly in the area of large structure assembly. Two of the key challenges for traditional ded-icated automation systems in large structure assembly are considered to be the trans-portation of products and the adaptation of manufacturing processes to changes in requirements. In order to make dynamic, self-organising systems a reality, several challenges in the process dynamics and logistical control need to be solved. In this paper, we propose a Multi-Agent System (MAS) approach to self-organise mobile robots in large structure assembly. The model is based on fixed-priority pre-emptive scheduling and uses a blackboard agent as a central information source and to facil-itate more common goal directed distributed negotiation and decision making be-tween agents representing the different needs of products and available mobile re-sources (robots).