A multi-agent controller on embedded system for complex mechatronics

A multi-agent controller on embedded system is presented for complex mechatronics in this paper. The agents´ concept is combined with a physical control system to produce a controller agent. The multi-controller system of complex mechatronics can be regarded as a series of controller agents, and they can be converted to the multi-agent system (MAS) easily by changing corresponding concepts. Controller agents can be implemented by a number of agent tasks located on different microprocessors at the hardware level and coordinated by a real-time operating system (RTOS) at the software level. In the view of control agents and MAS, an embedded control system with ARM and DSP is designed and developed for a vision-based automated guided vehicle (AGV), from the agents´ partitions to the MAS design, and from the hardware construction to the software programming. This development paradigm demonstrates an effective and concise implementation way in which the MAS-based approach is adopted on the embedded control system. It is expected to help the multi-controller system design for complex mechatronics.