Generating Rescheduling Knowledge using Reinforcement Learning in a Cognitive Architecture
This work addresses the need for more flexible and adaptive manufacturing systems by developing a cognitive method for rescheduling, which is incremental as it builds on existing cognitive architectures and reinforcement learning techniques.
The paper tackles the problem of generating rescheduling knowledge for manufacturing systems by proposing a novel approach that integrates reinforcement learning with artificial cognitive capabilities in the Soar architecture, enabling the system to autonomously assess its operational range and acquire experience through simulation.
In order to reach higher degrees of flexibility, adaptability and autonomy in manufacturing systems, it is essential to develop new rescheduling methodologies which resort to cognitive capabilities, similar to those found in human beings. Artificial cognition is important for designing planning and control systems that generate and represent knowledge about heuristics for repair-based scheduling. Rescheduling knowledge in the form of decision rules is used to deal with unforeseen events and disturbances reactively in real time, and take advantage of the ability to act interactively with the user to counteract the effects of disruptions. In this work, to achieve the aforementioned goals, a novel approach to generate rescheduling knowledge in the form of dynamic first-order logical rules is proposed. The proposed approach is based on the integration of reinforcement learning with artificial cognitive capabilities involving perception and reasoning/learning skills embedded in the Soar cognitive architecture. An industrial example is discussed showing that the approach enables the scheduling system to assess its operational range in an autonomic way, and to acquire experience through intensive simulation while performing repair tasks.