The ARCHON System and its Applications

Abstract

ARCHON (ARchitecture for Cooperative Heterogeneous ON-line systems) was Europe's largest project in the area of Distributed Artificial Intelligence (DAI).It devised a general-purpose architecture, software framework, and methodology which has been used to support the development of DAI systems in a number of real world industrial domains.Some examples of the applications to which it has been successfully applied include: electricity distribution and supply, electricity transmission and distribution, control of a cement kiln complex, control of a particle accelerator, and control of a robotics application.The type of cooperating community that it supports has a decentralised control regime and individual problem solving agents which are large grain, loosely coupled, and semi-autonomous.This paper will tackle a broad range of issues related to the application of ARCHON technology to industrial applications.Firstly, it gives the rationale for a DAI approach to industrial applications and highlights the characteristics which typify this important domain.Secondly, the ARCHON framework is detailed -with a special emphasis being placed upon the implementation architecture.Thirdly, a brief resumee and status report of the main applications is presented.Finally, the lessons learned and the future plans are presented.