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W. Lepuschitz, A. Zoitl, M. Vallee, M. Merdan:
"Toward Self-Reconfiguration of Manufacturing Systems Using Automation Agents";
IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Part C: Applications and Reviews, 41 (2011), 1; S. 52 - 69.

The reconfiguration of control software is regarded as
an important ability to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency in
future manufacturing systems. Agent technology is considered as a
promising approach to provide reconfiguration abilities, but existing
work has been focused mainly on the reconfiguration of higher
layers concerned with production scheduling and planning. In this
paper, we present an automation agent architecture for controlling
physical components that integrates "on the fly" reconfiguration
abilities on the low-level layer. Our approach is combined with an
ontological representation of the low-level functionality at the highlevel
control layer, which is able to reason and initiate reconfiguration
processes to modify the low-level control (LLC). As current
control systems are mostly based on standards and principles that
do not support reconfiguration, leading to rigid control software
architectures, we base our approach on the promising Standard
IEC 61499 for the LLC, extended by an innovative reconfiguration
infrastructure.We demonstrate this approach with a case study of
a reconfiguration process that modifies the LLC functionality provided
by the automation agent of a physical component. Thereby,
we obtain the ability to support numerous different LLC configurations
without increasing the LLC´s complexity. By applying our
automation agent architecture, we enhance not only the flexibility
of each component´s control software, but also achieve the precondition
for reconfiguring the entire manufacturing system.

Automation agent, flexible manufacturing, IEC 61499, low-level control (LLC), ontology, reconfiguration.