SIMI - an automated environment for the intelligent planning of actions in flexible manufacturing cells

Planning is a large, and growing area of artificial intelligence. The planning´s main idea is to generate a sequence of actions for an agent, such as a robot, that can change its environment. For more than 30 years, planning systems have been an active research topic, and a number of approaches have been developed. In the last years, the case-based approach is the one, which has received more attention in the area. This is due to the reduction of the space search achieved, leading to better planner´s performance. In this context, this work intends to provide a general view of an intelligent integrated environment, which generates an automatic sequencing of actions capable of producing parts in a flexible manufacturing cell. The main component system of this environment is a case-based planner, called PLANCE-E.