Sequential resource allocation utilizing agents

Many manufacturing systems allocate resources, such as machines, sequentially. Sequential allocation of resources can be viewed as a digraph where each vertex represents resources forming nodes in a distributed system and the arcs represent the allocation. The allocation of such resources can be considered to be a distributed problem. Agents are a distributed artificial intelligence paradigm applicable to distributed problems and, therefore, have a potential to be applicable to sequential resource allocation. This paper presents a method of sequential resource allocation utilizing agents, and an Automated Guide Vehicles system is presented as an example application area. This system was utilized in experiments to test the agent application. Results and an analysis are also presented.