Holons & agents: recent development and mutual impacts

Abstract: This introductory paper to the HOLOMAS'01 workshop briefly gathers the recent trends in both the areas of holonic and multi-agent systems. The IEC 61499 standard for low-level function-block oriented holonic control was completed recently. It has been recognized by the holonic manufacturing community that this standard is able to help in solving low-level control tasks only. Thus, the "agentification" process of holons has started and proceeds in a fast way. The FIPA foundation seems to offer a potential approach to standardization of the higher-level communication among the holonic agents. Several papers tackling this problem are included into the workshop proceedings.

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