Logical communication levels in an intelligent flexible manufacturing system

In most cases in intelligent manufacturing applications the communication functions depend on the capabilities of the intelligent tool (e.g. expert system). Three different types of working mode and different logical levels of the communication of an intelligent cell-controller in a CIM environment is shown in the paper. These levels are implemented - of course - within the same protocol. After this concept the paper explains the connection between these logical levels and the communication protocols and ontologies. Finally a simulation tool introduced in the second part of the paper was developed to examine the effects of the different communication messages and to analyse how the different type of messages can be measured in a real Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS) environment. Key words: distributed artificial intelligence, knowledge communication, flexible manufacturing system 1