Objective
The overall project objective translates in the following specific objectives:
- Analysis and Evaluation of Change and Disturbances in Industrial Plants. The consortium will establish what are the important changes and disturbances in industrial plants.
- Applicability and Gap Analysis for Autonomous Co-operating Agents. The consortium will analyse which existing developments in ACA system theory are applicable and will systematically identify what still is missing
- Theory and Strategy for ACA-based Manufacturing Control. The consortium will develop a theory and strategy for the development of agent-based manufacturing control systems capable of managing change and disturbances.
- Metrics Relationships. The consortium will analyse and systematise the relationships between metrics characterising respectively the autonomous co-operating agents system, the manufacturing system and the business operations.
- Validation - Application of Theory and Strategy to a realistic Testbed. In order to assess and validate the developments, the consortium will apply its theory and strategy to a testbed, which is selected under the leadership of the industrial partners.
- Dissemination and Take-up of Results. The project results reflect the above specific objectives. Also, the approach mirrors the above: (1) The project first establishes what are the possibilities for having an impact; this provides a concrete and relevant goal. (2) Building on the first results, the project establishes what relevant technologies already exists and which ACA technologies need to be developed. (3) Equally building on the first results, the project establishes metrics; these are essential both for evaluation of later results and facilitating take-up of results after/during the project. The second and third activities need the focus provided by the first activity's results. (4+5) In parallel, to permit mutual interaction, the project develops a general solution (ACA framework) and a specific solution (testbed) to the problem of handling change and disturbance.
The vendor in the consortium ensures that the approach and results of the project are suitable for further developments into commercial products. As this is an SME, this vendor will prevent the development of results requiring large enterprises to market products originating from this project. Moreover, this partner will develop a "business plan" for the development of the Mascade results into commercial products.
Dissemination of the project results will benefit from the Esprit Working Groups IIBM and IMS-WG as well as the ICIMS Network of excellence. Journal/conference papers, seminars/workshops, and transfer to educational/training activities ensure dissemination. The industrial business units which co-operated in the first activity will be provided with customised feedback. Mascade will also disseminate through the WEB.
Change and disturbance handling is a major concern for manufacturing systems today. Market demand and environmental/societal pressures require effective manufacturing systems to adapt themselves at an ever-increasing pace. This creates the need for novel manufacturing control systems that are able to manage production change and disturbance both effectively and efficiently. The proposed project addresses precisely this issue and aims to impact on this growing concern in industry by demonstrating a way to tackle the above problem.
Incremental development of existing manufacturing control systems appears unlikely to solve the above problem and hence more novel solutions are needed. The emerging field of autonomous co-operating agents -denoted ACAs - is seen as offering superior potential in this respect by the experts in the domain by affording a high degree of flexibility and modularity to algorithms and architectures supporting production systems. Accordingly, the overall objective of this project is to tackle and resolve the upstream research issues for the development of autonomous co-operating agent-based manufacturing control systems that are capable of handling change and disturbances.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- engineering and technology electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering electronic engineering control systems
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Coordinator
3000 LEUVEN
Belgium
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.