| Advantages/Situations to Employ | Disadvantages/Situations to Employ | |
| Centralized Control | More control, without having to search for problems or physically go to fix them. | Expensive, and complex. If the central control fails, the whole system fails. |
| Distributed Control | If one part fails, the whole thing does not fail (with the exception of stalling an assembly line etc.) | Not as easy to isolae problems and (go to) fix them. |
| Autonomous Agents | Possibly Individually cheap usually. Don't require complex system control. | Each inividual agent needs its own, possibly expensive, controller. Since not connected to each other, they may end up being less efficient than if contolled together. |
Centralized Control (very good) Example: Heating system at a school like ISP
Distributed Control (very good) Example: Traffic lights system with "smart" intersection traffic lights
Autonomous Agennts (very good) Example: Swarming oil slick cleanup robots
Distributed Control (very good) Example: Traffic lights system with "smart" intersection traffic lights
Autonomous Agennts (very good) Example: Swarming oil slick cleanup robots
