MME Seminar: Intelligent product agents for multi-agent control of manufacturing systems
About the event
Dr. Ilya Kovalenko, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan
The current manufacturing paradigm is shifting toward the development of more flexible manufacturing systems that can produce highly personalized products, adapt to unexpected disturbances in the system, and readily integrate new manufacturing system technology. However, to achieve this type of flexibility, new system-level control strategies must be developed, tested, and integrated to control and coordinate all of the components on the shop floor. One decentralized control strategy that can enable system flexibility and personalized production is multi-agent control. In this control strategy, resource agents, representing material handling and processing resources, and product agents, representing parts in the system, work together to drive system behavior. The focus of this talk will be my work for improving the intelligence and capabilities of one of these agents – the product agent. A standardized product agent architecture, models to capture the dynamics and constraints of the manufacturing environment, and methods to improve the product agent decision making will be described. In addition, new methods that allow the product agent to explore the manufacturing system and cooperate with other agents in the system are provided. Results from semiconductor manufacturing simulations and physical manufacturing testbeds will be presented to display the capabilities of the intelligent product agent. The product agent presented in this talk pushes the fields of manufacturing and system-level control closer to realizing the goals of increased personalized production and improved manufacturing system flexibility.
Biography: Ilya Kovalenko is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan. He received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan in 2020, where he was advised by Dr. Dawn Tilbury and Dr. Kira Barton. Ilya received his BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology (2015) and his MS degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan (2018). His current research interests lie in the areas of control theory, artificial intelligence, and smart manufacturing, with a focus on cooperative control, cyber-physical systems, and robotics.
https://mme.wsu.edu/seminar-series/