An Agent-Based Simulation Test Bed for Modeling Wireless Sensors Based Shop Floor Control Systems

A side-effect of the continuing globalization is that manufacturing is more and more becoming a commodity. The manufacturing industry has to respond to rapidly changing markets more often and much faster than ever before while maintaining equivalent or better quality. The Automated Manufacturing System has been widely accepted as an enabling technology to respond quickly to the market changes and to improve the quality and operational efficiency of production. In this context, wireless sensors carry several advantages compared to traditional wired sensors in creating highly reliable shop floor control system, including self-organizing, self-healing, auto-routing, and self-controlling. This paper presents an agent-based simulation test bed to assist the system designer at each stage of development of wireless sensor based shop floor control systems. The proposed test bed exploits virtual factory approach in order to enhance the design and development process. Virtual Factory allows system designer to self-experience on the systems without the need to work in actual industry.