User interface design for cooperating agents in industrial process supervision and control applications

Computer systems based on cooperating agent architectures are currently introduced in industrial process supervision and control applications as operator support systems in tasks such as fault diagnosis, system restoration etc. Cooperating agents are relevant to these applications since they involve a high degree of physical distribution, the operators' decisions are often based on multiple conflicting views which can be moderated by the cooperating agents, and the domains are complex with high degree of modularity.In the frame of the research project ARCHON, a multi-agent system architecture has been defined in order to be used in industrial process supervision and control applications. An issue of high importance in this context is the interaction with the human operator and the design of a user interface which supports this interaction. The impact of multi-agent architectures on the user interface design of industrial process supervision and control systems is the subject of this paper. An example of an interface designed for a multi-agent system in the area of electrical network supervision is provided.