Agents to guide operators with recognition of time series

A practical distributed artificial intelligence (AI) system is proposed for the guidance of plant operations in a steel galvanizing plant. The system includes three autonomous agents for guidance. Each agent records data sampled every moment in an appropriate form for a task assigned to it. The data correspond to states of a monitored entity. Each agent recognizes not only a current state but also a state transition in the course of time to select the best moment for a plant operation. An experiment in a real plant has proved that the plant-operation-supporting system can guide plant operations in much the same way as an experienced operator