A Decentralized Multi-Agent Coordination Method for Dynamic and Constrained Production Planning

[EN] In the capacitated production planning problem, quantities of products need to be determined at consecutive periods within a given time horizon when product demands, costs, and production capacities vary through time. We focus on a general formulation of this problem where each product is produced in one step and setup cost is paid at each period of production. Additionally, products can be anticipated or backordered in respect to the demand period. We propose a computationally efficient decentralized approach based on the spillover effect relating to the accumulation of production costs of each product demand through time. The performance of the spillover algorithm is compared against the state-of-the-art mixed integer programming branch-and-bound solver CPLEX 12.8 considering optimality gap and computational time.This work is supported by: the Spanish MINECO projects RTI2018-095390-B-C33 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE) and TIN2017- 88476-C2-1-R, the French ADEME project E-Logistics, and an STSM Grant funded by the European ICT COST Action IC1406, cHiPSet.Lujak, M.; Fernandez, A.; Onaindia De La Rivaherrera, E. (2020). A Decentralized Multi-Agent Coordination Method for Dynamic and Constrained Production Planning. International Foundation for Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems. 1913-1915. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/179784S1913191

On Multi-Agent Coordination of Agri-Robot Fleets

International audienc

Agriculture fleet vehicle routing: A decentralised and dynamic problem

To date, the research on agriculture vehicles in general and Agriculture Mobile Robots (AMRs) in particular has focused on a single vehicle (robot) and its agriculture-specific capabilities. Very little work has explored the coordination of fleets of such vehicles in the daily execution of farming tasks. This is especially the case when considering overall fleet performance, its efficiency and scalability in the context of highly automated agriculture vehicles that perform tasks throughout multiple fields potentially owned by different farmers and/or enterprises. The potential impact of automating AMR fleet coordination on commercial agriculture is immense. Major conglomerates with large and heterogeneous fleets of agriculture vehicles could operate on huge land areas without human operators to effect precision farming. In this paper, we propose the Agriculture Fleet Vehicle Routing Problem (AF-VRP) which, to the best of our knowledge, differs from any other version of the Vehicle Routing Problem studied so far. We focus on the dynamic and decentralised version of this problem applicable in environments involving multiple agriculture machinery and farm owners where concepts of fairness and equity must be considered. Such a problem combines three related problems: the dynamic assignment problem, the dynamic 3-index assignment problem and the capacitated arc routing problem. We review the state-of-the-art and categorise solution approaches as centralised, distributed and decentralised, based on the underlining decision-making context. Finally, we discuss open challenges in applying distributed and decentralised coordination approaches to this problem

Dynamic coordination in fleet management systems: Toward smart cyber fleets

Fleet management systems are commonly used to coordinate mobility and delivery services in a broad variety of domains. However, their traditional top-down control architecture becomes a bottleneck in open and dynamic environments, where scalability, proactiveness, and autonomy are becoming key factors for their success. Here, the authors present an abstract event-based architecture for fleet management systems that supports tailoring dynamic control regimes for coordinating fleet vehicles, and illustrate it for the case of medical emergency management. Then, they go one step ahead in the transition toward automatic or driverless fleets, by conceiving fleet management systems in terms of cyber-physical systems, and putting forward the notion of cyber fleets. © 2014 IEEE.This work has been partially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through the projects “Agreement Technologies” (grant CSD2007-0022; CONSOLIDER-INGENIO 2010), “intelligent Human-Agent Societies” (grant TIN2012-36586-C03-02), and “Smart Delivery” (grant RTC-2014-1850-4).Peer Reviewe

Towards smart open dynamic fleets

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33509-4_32Nowadays, vehicles of modern fleets are endowed with advanced devices that allow the operators of a control center to have global knowledge about fleet status, including existing incidents. Fleet management systems support real-time decision making at the control center so as to maximize fleet perform‐ ance. In this paper, setting out from our experience in dynamic coordination of fleet management systems, we focus on fleets that are open, dynamic and highly autonomous. Furthermore, we propose how to cope with the scalability problem as the number of vehicles grows. We present our proposed architecture for open fleet management systems and use the case of taxi services as example of our proposal.Work partially supported by Spanish Government through the projects iHAS (grant TIN2012-36586-C03) and SURF (grant TIN2015-65515-C4-X-R), the Autonomous Region of Madrid through grant S2013/ICE-3019 (“MOSI-AGIL-CM”, cofunded by EU Structural Funds FSE and FEDER) and URJC-Santander (30VCPIGI15).Billhardt, H.; Fernández, A.; Lujak, M.; Ossowski, S.; Julian Inglada, VJ.; Paz, JFD.; Hernández, JZ. (2016). Towards smart open dynamic fleets. En Multi-Agent Systems and Agreement Technologies. Springer. 410-424. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33509-4_32S41042

An architecture for situation-aware evacuation guidance in smart buildings

Smart Cities require reliable means for managing installations that offer essential services to the citizens. In this paper we focus on the problem of evacuation of smart buildings in case of emergencies. In particular, we present an abstract architecture for situation-aware evacuation guidance systems in smart buildings, describe its key modules in detail, and provide some concrete examples of its structure and dynamics

Endowing Mobile Robot Teams with Ambient Intelligence for Improved Patient Care

International audienceBy networking mobile robots, personal smart devices, and smart space networks, we can provide for a more accurate data for patient care than when the former are used individually. We call this network of personal and smart space devices and robots "Robot-Assisted Ambient Intelligence (RAmI)". Even more, with the application of distributed network optimization, not only can we improve the assistance of an individual patient, but we can also minimize conflict or congestion over multiple patients' usage of limited resources that are spatially and temporally constrained in such a system. The emphasis of RAmI is on the efficiency and effectiveness of the physical assistance of multiple users and on the influence of individual robot actions on the desired system's performance. In this paper, we propose a distributed RAmI system and put the basis for the architectural setup of such a system. This distributed system should be modular and should facilitate fast decision-making to multiple agents over limited available resources. The proposed architecture is showcased by means of a case study