Using ARCHONTM to develop real-world DAI applications for electricity transportation management and particle accelerator control

ARCHONTM (ARchitecture for Cooperative Heterogeneous ON-line systems) was Europe’s largest ever 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. Two of these applications, electricity transportation management and particle accelerator control, have been run successfully on-line in the organisation for which they were developed (respectively, Iberdrola an electricity utility in the north of Spain and CERN the European Centre for high energy physics research near Geneva). This paper recounts the problems, insights and experiences gained whilst deploying ARCHON technology in these real-world industrial applications. Firstly, it gives the rationale for a DAI approach to industrial applications and highlights the key design forces which shape work in this important domain. Secondly, the ARCHON framework is described with a special emphasis being placed upon the implementation architecture. Thirdly, detailed descriptions of the Iberdrola and CERN applications are given the motive for a DAI approach is outlined, the multiple agent systems which were built are described, and the benefits which accrued are stated. Finally, the lessons distilled from this work are discussed so that the engineers of future DAI systems may profit from our experiences.