Deep reinforcement learning in smart manufacturing: A review and prospects

To facilitate the personalized smart manufacturing paradigm with cognitive automation capabilities, Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) has attracted ever-increasing attention by offering an adaptive and flexible solution. DRL takes the advantages of both Deep Neural Networks (DNN) and Reinforcement Learning (RL), by embracing the power of representation learning, to make precise and fast decisions when facing dynamic and complex situations. Ever since the first paper of DRL was published in 2013, its applications have sprung up across the manufacturing field with exponential publication growth year by year. However, there still lacks any comprehensive review of the DRL in the field of smart manufacturing. To fill this gap, a systematic review process was conducted, with 261 relevant publications selected to date (20-Oct-2022), to gain a holistic understanding of the development, application, and challenges of DRL in smart manufacturing along the whole engineering lifecycle. First, the concept and development of DRL are summarized. Then, the typical DRL applications are analyzed in the four engineering lifecycle stages: design, manufacturing, distribution, and maintenance. Finally, the challenges and future directions are illustrated, especially emerging DRL-related technologies and solutions that can improve the manufacturing system’s deployment feasibility, cognitive capability, and learning efficiency, respectively. It is expected that this work can provide an insightful guide to the research of DRL in the smart manufacturing field and shed light on its future perspectives.