Holonic Multi-Agent System for Real Time Simulation of Control Systems

As control systems grow more and more complex, the level of testing and validation needs to be rigorous which in turn improves the robustness and reliability of the control system. We propose a testing and validation scenario where we create a multi-agent distributed simulation environment, and where the control and plant algorithms are executed on real-time targets. This simulation environment is achieved by the use of a powerful capability that permits embedding simulation into micro controllers. These simulations interact with the controller in real time. In this paper, we discuss a distributed simulation environment that combines control, agents, and simulation. We use Matlab xPC target technology as the main mechanism for generating the embeddable simulation part of the environment. We intend to embed the simulation into an ARM based core micro controller. The simulations and the (Programmable Logic Controller) PLC concurrently interact with each other using a (Common Industrial Protocol) CIP-based tag-level communications. This combination of technologies creates a high fidelity testing environment.