A BEHAVIOR-BASED APPROACH TO SCHEDULING IN DISTRIBUTED MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS

This article proposes a behavior-based approach to scheduling a distri buted autonomous manufacturing system. A behavior-based approach advan ces self-control of the autonomous entities as an alternative to purel y reactive control through negotiations. Using this approach, the enti ties are given individual scheduling behaviors and interact with their environment through stimulus-response. This individual action brings about a collective emergent behavior of the system. We describe a hete rarchical scheduling model based on this approach that incorporates ad aptive mechanisms and local scheduling algorithms. The scheduling perf ormance of the model for fairly complex production situations demonstr ates a performance comparable to well-known heuristics. (C) 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.