IEC 61499 Device Management Model through the lenses of RMAS

The RMAS (relational-model multi-agent system) architecture has been proven promising towards the introduction of autonomic intelligence for industrial agents, and suitable for the enforcement of some parts of the reference model in the IEC 61499 standard, for distributed adaptive automation and control systems, namely the Resource model and the Function Block model. In this paper, the analysis is extended to the Device Management model. The RMAS is overlaid on the structures of this model in order to demonstrate that it can constitute factual and promising means for the expression of essential self-* capabilities of autonomic industrial agents. The analysis here conducted covers also some aspects of the XAI (explainable artificial intelligence), due to their relevance in industrial context. RMAS results a fundamental step for the factual introduction of AI in industrial playground, as a technology framework for the explainability, controllability, and quality of the intelligent automation solutions for industry.