Stochastic learning scheme in quasi-distributed management method for autonomous manufacturing systems

This paper proposes a new framework of an autonomous and distributed flexible manufacturing system - Multi Client Robot Groups(MCR) - and describes a stochastic learning scheme applied to managerial problems of the system. The MCR is composed of groups of manufacturing robots, named Client Robots (CRs), which are capable of both versatility and independence in their performances. The MCR is expected to have high performance because the MCR can perform concurrent and corporative processing. However, the system performance is determined by the organizations of the CR groups. Therefore the treatment of the managerial problems and organizations of the system are important problems. In this paper, it is assumed that CR groups being able to processing tasks are selected stochastically based on the strengths of the robot groups. The learning scheme adjusting the strength is introduced to organize the groups in the system and control the each performance of the groups according to the total system performance. Finally, some experimental results of the learning scheme are shown.