Holonic control of a water cooling system for a steel rod mill

As part of the intelligent manufacturing systems feasibility study on holonic manufacturing systems, a benchmark study whose objective was to develop an architecture of a holonic cooling control system for a steel rod rolling mill is described. The resulting architecture was simulated to illustrate benefits that could be obtained with the holonic system compared with a conventional system. A generic architecture for holonic control systems was proposed and then applied to the specific continuous manufacturing problem of steel rod temperature control during water cooling. The properties of autonomy and cooperation are central to the generic architecture, and the specific holonic cooling control application reflects this underlying principle. A set of goals and applicable holonic system performance metrics for the cooling control system were determined and the feasibility of the holonic cooling control system was clearly demonstrated. >