Multi-agent intelligent field terminals for autonomous decentralized water delivery control systems

Abstract

Through our research, we have developed a unique, autonomous decentralized system that can be used in the water control field. In conventional control systems, certain send-and-receive functions are installed in the front-end processor (FEP) of the master station according to various properties of the information arriving from field terminals (FTs). The host computer reacts by sending control data to the FTs in accordance with the pre-installed optimum control algorithm, which receives transmitted information from the FEP. Our method intellectualizes a FT to be an intelligent field terminal (IFT) which judges the diverse information from devices of other FTs automatically and autonomously without depending on the host CPU or the FEP. The IFT provides multi-agent functions which can distinguish certain information conditions from other IFTs and can cooperate with the diverse functional agents of an IFT to resolve data conflicts among IFTs.