flexis is partner of the European Research Project MAS4AI
flexis AG is partner of the European Research Project MAS4AI which stands for Multi-Agent Systems for Pervasive Artificial Intelligence for assisting Humans in Modular Production Environments. The project started in October 2020 and has now reached some important outcome.
European industry has been very competitive on the global markets by utilizing highly efficient Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools and massively producing high quality products. The advent for mass customization has been stressing the capability of modularization and flexibility of production processes through the incorporation of AI technologies. However, the communication between the different automation systems has not been yet accomplished efficiently since they lack interoperability and are restricted to their own system of coordination. The MAS4AI project is implementing a system that allows the deployment and synchronization of different AI agents in manufacturing for autonomous modular production and human assistance. The MAS4AI system will be heavily driven by large industrial cases and will aim towards digitalizing European industry with AI tools according to the Industry 4.0 paradigm. MAS4AI develops its overall ambition by the means of four Scientific and Technological objectives namely:
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Multi-Agents-System (MAS) for distributing AI components in different hierarchy layers, customers and suppliers for realizing refurbishment activities,
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AI agents using Knowledge-based Representation with Semantic Web Technologies,
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AI Agents for hierarchical planning of production processes,
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Model-based Machine Learning (ML) AI agent.
MAS4AI research and technological activity is strongly driven by a set of industrial use cases which are used as demonstrators. The demonstrators involve important industrial sectors of high value added for Europe, namely AI technologies used for Automotive, Contract Manufacturing, Bicycle Industry, Bearings Production and Wood Processing Industry.
The project is coordinated by the DFKI (German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence) in Kaiserslautern and has a duration of three years. flexis will mainly focus on the automotive demonstrator with Volkswagen and DFKI, where flexis will develop an integrated planning system for production system and production program by coupling a central planning agent, a simulation software and an agent-based control.
More detailed information about the current status of the project can be found here: https://www.mas4ai.eu/
MAS4AI has received funding from the European Union‘s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 957204.