It is now a common sense that manufactures including machine suppliers and system
integrators of the 21 st century will need to compete on global marketplaces, which are
frequently shifting and fragmenting, with new technologies continuously emerging.
Future production machines and manufacturing systems need to offer the "agility"
required in providing responsiveness to product changes and the ability to
reconfigure. The primary aim for this research is to advance studies in machine
control system design, in the context of the European project VIR-ENG - "Integrated
Design, Simulation and Distributed Control of Agile Modular Machinery"
