Collaborative Multiagent Systems — an Alternative to Full Automation of Production

Abstract

The paper proposes a new approach as an alternative to full automation of processes that meets current economic trends — collaborative multi-agent systems. In this concept, people and robots are considered as agents in a single sensory-information field, who perform tasks to achieve the goals of the collaborative multi-agent system. The urgency of collaborative multi-agent systems results from the fact that the industrial use of fully automated multi-component systems is limited by the financial and infrastructural unavailability of various industries to switch to completely unmanned technologies. The proposed approach combines the latest, but remaining quite recouped, technological advances along with highly skilled human labor. The use of collaborative multi-agent systems will be economically justified in the manufacture of products in small batches, in the conditions of rapid change of product lines, as well as the presence of staff shortages. The article shows that such an approach can significantly reduce automation costs, while ensuring that the specified production indicators are met. This approach allows taking a fresh look at a human, considering him and a robot as equal partners within a collaborative system. The basic concepts and distinctive characteristics of collaborative multi-agent systems are formulated and presented in the work, justifications for their use are given. Creating a new class of collaborative multi-agent systems requires solving a number of problems associated with the interaction of man and robot. The article considers issues related to the work of a person within a collaborative system, with a rational separation of human functions and an automated production system, in accordance with the necessary level of collaboration. The inclusion of a person with his psychoemotional and physical characteristics as an equivalent agent of a multi-agent system causes difficulties in formalizing collaborative multi-agent systems associated with the need to take these features into account and create a sensory-information system. The inclusion of a person with his psychoemotional and physical characteristics as an equivalent agent of a multi-agent system causes difficulties in formalizing collaborative multi-agent systems associated with the need to take these features into account and create a sensory-information system. The paper discusses ways to formalize a collaborative multi-agent system and management approaches.