Important Dates
Paper Submission
May 1, 2026
Work-in-Progress papers
May 31, 2026
Workshops
June 30, 2026
Notification
July 1, 2026
Early Bird
July 31, 2026
Camera Ready
July 17, 2026
Conference
September 9 – 11, 2026
Paulo Leitão
Professor at Instituto Politecnico Braganca | Scientific Coordinator of the Research Centre in Digitalization and Intelligent Robotics (CeDRI) - Portugal
Title: Multi-agent Systems as a Key Enabler Technology to Realize Smart, Reconfigurable and Sustainable Cyber-Physical Systems
Abstract
Global markets are imposing strong changing conditions for industrial companies running their businesses, facing strong pressures related to the customization of products in high flexible production systems. The fourth industrial revolution aims to promote the digitization of the traditional industries, aiming intelligent factories characterized by adaptability, efficiency, functionality, reliability, safety, and usability, re-shaping the way machines, processes and systems operate. This digital transformation is also noticed in other domains like administration, electrical grids, transportation, healthcare and agriculture. In this context, smart products, processes and systems emerge of applying cyber-physical systems, complemented with emerging ICT and Artificial Intelligence technologies, such as Internet of Things, Big data, cloud computing, machine learning, virtual/augmented reality. Lately, the European Commission is pushing the Industry 5.0 initiative that complements Industry 4.0 by driving the transition to a sustainable, human-centric and resilient European industry.
This presentation discusses the use of multi-agent systems as a key enabling technology to realize this vision, i.e. a smart, digital and sustainable transition. Illustrative examples of using multi-agent systems to deploy industrial cyber-physical systems exhibiting self-organization and intelligence features will be provided to emphasize their innovative fascinating aspect. In particular, it is illustrated how multi-agent systems are applied to develop intelligent and reconfigurable manufacturing control systems. Despite, in theory, industrial agents are a promising approach, in practice, several roadblocks are constraining their wider industrial adoption. The presentation also discusses the key factors that would lead to acceptance in industry and particularly how the emergence of Generative Artificial Intelligence can play a new boost for the (finally) mass adoption of agent-based systems in industry.
Brief Biography
Paulo Leitão received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Porto, Portugal, in 2004. From 1993 to 1999 he developed research activities at the CIM Centre of Porto, from 1999 to 2000 at IDIT – Institute for Development and Innovation in Technology, from 2009 to 2017 at LIACC – Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science Laboratory, and since 2018 at CeDRI – Research Centre in Digitalization and Intelligent Robotics, where he is its scientific coordinator. He joined the Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Portugal, in 1995, where he is Full Professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering. He served as Head of the Department of Electrical Engineering from 2009 to 2015, Vice-President of Directive Board of School of Technology and Management from 2004 to 2009, President of the Pedagogical Council of School of Technology and Management during 2000 and Vice-President of Scientific Council of School of Technology and Management from 2001 to 2004.
His research interests are in the field of intelligent and reconfigurable systems, cyber-physical systems, multi-agent systems, digital twin, Internet of Things, factory automation and holonic systems. He participate / has participated in several national and international research projects, e.g. under the EU FP7, Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe frameworks, and Networks of Excellence. He is member of the International Program Committee (IPC) of several scientific events, and served as general co-chair of several international conferences, namely IFAC IMS’10, HoloMAS’11, IEEE ICARSC’16, SOHOMA’16 and IEEE INDIN’18. He has published 12 books and more than 400 papers in high-ranked international scientific journals and conference proceedings (per-review). He is co-author of three patents and received ten paper awards at international scientific conferences.
He is Senior member of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society (IES) and Systems, Man and Cybernetics Society (SMCS), past Chair of the IEEE IES Technical Committee on Industrial Agents, associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics and Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, member of the IEEE IES Administrative Committee (AdCom), and chair of the established IEEE 2660.1 standard.