This informative monograph helps meet the challenge of applying distributed control to dynamical systems. It shows readers how to bring the best parts of various control paradigms to bear in making distributed control more flexible and responsive.

"This book addresses the development of reconfigurable embedded control systems and describes various problems in this important research area, which include static and dynamic (manual or automatic) reconfigurations, multi-agent architectures, modeling and verification, component-based approaches, architecture description languages, distributed reconfigurable architectures, real-time and low power scheduling, execution models, and the implementation of such systems"--

This volume constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Third International Conference on Industrial Applications of Holonic and Multi-Agent Systems held in September 2007. The 39 full papers were selected from among 63 submissions. They are organized into topical sections covering theoretical and methodological issues, algorithms and technologies, implementation and validation, applications, and supply chain management.

Distributed Control Applications: Guidelines, Design Patterns, and Application Examples with the IEC 61499 discusses the IEC 61499 reference architecture for distributed and reconfigurable control and its adoption by industry. The book provides design patterns, application guidelines, and rules for designing distributed control applications based on the IEC 61499 reference model. Moreover, examples from various industrial domains and laboratory environments are introduced and explored.

Success in the continuous process industries depends upon the ability to adapt to the demands of global supply chains in real-time. Thus, process plants must be designed to be easily reconfigured as and when necessary. “A Distributed Coordination Approach to Reconfigurable Process Control” presents research that addresses this issue, via developing a new distributed framework that will enable the building of a process control system that is capable of reconfigurability. This framework views the process as a set of readily-integrated, modular process elements, which operate relatively independently and are each supported by a degree of stand-alone decision-making capability. The rationale and benefits of moving towards the new approach is demonstrated by means of a worked example of a real process plant. The research will also help end-users to gain an understanding of the economic aspects of material flows across their plants, and the ways in which their processes can be integrated across the enterprise.

Reconfigurable Computing Systems Engineering: Virtualization of Computing Architecture describes the organization of reconfigurable computing system (RCS) architecture and discusses the pros and cons of different RCS architecture implementations. Providing a solid understanding of RCS technology and where it’s most effective, this book: Details the architecture organization of RCS platforms for application-specific workloads Covers the process of the architectural synthesis of hardware components for system-on-chip (SoC) for the RCS Explores the virtualization of RCS architecture from the system and on-chip levels Presents methodologies for RCS architecture run-time integration according to mode of operation and rapid adaptation to changes of multi-parametric constraints Includes illustrative examples, case studies, homework problems, and references to important literature A solutions manual is available with qualifying course adoption. Reconfigurable Computing Systems Engineering: Virtualization of Computing Architecture offers a complete road map to the synthesis of RCS architecture, exposing hardware design engineers, system architects, and students specializing in designing FPGA-based embedded systems to novel concepts in RCS architecture organization and virtualization.

Distributed control systems offer the advantages of control local to the process being controlled while retaining the ease of control at a single centralised location. Typically such a system has involved a great deal of hard-wiring and has been of most use only in situations where flexibility is not essential. Now, however, distributed control systems are being applied more often in process control, autonomous systems and safety-critical systems where control needs to change to cope with fault appearance or other (possibly intentional) process disturbance. Reconfigurable Distributed Control helps meet the challenge of applying distributed control to dynamical systems, integrating different approaches to the problem. It presents an holistic view based on the appropriate use of stochastic, formal and robust control paradigms. The use of smart peripheral elements means that the degree of effort required for the reconfiguration of a networked control system can now be reduced, particular emphasis being placed on the reduction of time delays. Case studies are employed to demonstrate the real applications of the theory. While being of most interest to academic researchers and graduate students grappling with the problem of making distributed control systems more responsive to changes in process and plant, Reconfigurable Distributed Control will also be informative for readers with a background in more general distributed computing.