Towards a conceptual design of intelligent material transport using artificial intelligence

Reliable and efficient material transport is one of the basic requirements that affect productivity in industry. For that reason, in this paper two approaches are proposed for the task of intelligent material transport by using a mobile robot. The first approach is based on applying genetic algorithms for optimizing process plans. Optimized process plans are passed to the genetic algorithm for scheduling which generate an optimal job sequence by using minimal makespan as criteria. The second approach uses graph theory for generating paths and neural networks for learning generated paths. The Matla

Towards a conceptual design of intelligent material transport using artificial intelligence

Reliable and efficient material transport is one of the basic requirements that affect productivity in industry. For that reason, in this paper two approaches are proposed for the task of intelligent material transport by using a mobile robot. The first approach is based on applying genetic algorithms for optimizing process plans. Optimized process plans are passed to the genetic algorithm for scheduling which generate an optimal job sequence by using minimal makespan as criteria. The second approach uses graph theory for generating paths and neural networks for learning generated paths. The Matla

Koncepcijsko projektiranje inteligentnog unutarnjeg transporta materijala korištenjem umjetne inteligencije

Reliable and efficient material transport is one of the basic requirements that affect productivity in industry. For that reason, in this paper two approaches are proposed for the task of intelligent material transport by using a mobile robot. The first approach is based on applying genetic algorithms for optimizing process plans. Optimized process plans are passed to the genetic algorithm for scheduling which generate an optimal job sequence by using minimal makespan as criteria. The second approach uses graph theory for generating paths and neural networks for learning generated paths. The Matlab© software package is used for developing genetic algorithms, manufacturing process simulation, implementing search algorithms and neural network training. The obtained paths are tested by means of the Khepera II mobile robot system within a static laboratory model of manufacturing environment. The experiment results clearly show that an intelligent mobile robot can follow paths generated by using genetic algorithms as well as learn and predict optimal material transport flows thanks to using neural networks. The achieved positioning error of the mobile robot indicates that the conceptual design approach based on the axiomatic design theory can be used for designing the material transport and handling tasks in intelligent manufacturing systems.Pouzdan i efikasan transport materijala je jedan od ključnih zahtjeva koji utječe na povećanje produktivnosti u industriji. Iz tog razloga, u radu su predložena dva pristupa za inteligentan transport materijala korištenjem mobilnog robota. Prvi pristup se zasniva na primjeni genetskih algoritama za optimizaciju tehnoloških procesa. Optimalna putanja se dobiva korištenjem optimalnih tehnoloških procesa i genetskih algoritama za vremensko planiranje, uz minimalno vrijeme kao kriterij. Drugi pristup je temeljen na primjeni teorije grafova za generiranje putanja i neuronskih mreža za učenje generirane putanje. Matlab© softverski paket je korišten za razvoj genetskih algoritama, simulaciju tehnoloških procesa, implementaciju algoritama pretraživanja i obučavanje neuronskih mreža. Dobivene putanje su testirane pomoću Khepera II mobilnog robota u statičkom laboratorijskom modelu tehnološkog okruženja. Eksperimentalni rezultati pokazuju kako inteligentni mobilni robot prati putanje generirane korištenjem genetskih algoritama, kao i da uči i predviđa optimalne tokove materijala zahvaljujući neuronskim mrežama. Ostvarena pogreška pozicioniranja mobilnog robota ukazuje da se koncepcijski pristup baziran na aksiomatskoj teoriji projektiranja može koristiti u projektiranju transporta i manipulacije u inteligentnom tehnološkom sustavu

Multi-Objective Flexible Job Shop Scheduling Using Genetic Algorithms

Flexible Job Shop Scheduling is an important problem in the fields of combinatorial optimization and production management. This research addresses multi-objective flexible job shop scheduling problem with the objective of simultaneous minimization of: (1) makespan, (2) workload of the most loaded machine, and (3) total workload. A general-purpose, domain independent genetic algorithm implemented in a spreadsheet environment is proposed for the flexible job shop. Spreadsheet functions are used to develop the shop model. Performance of the proposed algorithm is compared with heuristic algorithms already reported in the literature. Simulation experiments demonstrated that the proposed methodology can achieve solutions that are comparable to previous approaches in terms of solution quality and computational time. Flexible job shop models presented herein are easily customizable to cater for different objective functions without changing the basic genetic algorithm routine or the spreadsheet model. Experimental analysis demonstrates the robustness, simplicity, and general-purpose nature of the proposed approach

A robust solving strategy for the vehicle routing problem with multiple depots and multiple objectives

This document presents the development of a robust solving strategy for the Vehicle Routing Problem with Multiple Depots and Multiple Objectives (MO-MDVRP). The problem tackeled in this work is the problem to minimize the total cost and the load imbalance in vehicle routing plan for distribution of goods. This thesis presents a MILP mathematical model and a solution strategy based on a Hybrid Multi- Objective Scatter Search Algorithm. Several experiments using simulated instances were run proving that the proposed method is quite robust, this is shown in execution times (less than 4 minutes for an instance with 8 depots and 300 customers); also, the proposed method showed good results compared to the results found with the MILP model for small instances (up to 20 clients and 2 depots).MaestríaMagister en Ingeniería Industria

Adaptive autotuning mathematical approaches for integrated optimization of automated container terminal

With the development of automated container terminals (ACTs), reducing the loading and unloading time of operation and improving the working efficiency and service level have become the key point. Taking into account the actual operation mode of loading and unloading in ACTs, a mixed integer programming model is adopted in this study to minimize the loading and unloading time of ships, which can optimize the integrated scheduling of the gantry cranes (QCs), automated guided vehicles (AGVs), and automated rail-mounted gantries (ARMGs) in automated terminals. Various basic metaheuristic and improved hybrid algorithms were developed to optimize the model, proving the effectiveness of the model to obtain an optimized scheduling scheme by numerical experiments and comparing the different performances of algorithms. The results show that the hybrid GA-PSO algorithm with adaptive autotuning approaches by fuzzy control is superior to other algorithms in terms of solution time and quality, which can effectively solve the problem of integrated scheduling of automated container terminals to improve efficiency.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Design and Analysis of an Estimation of Distribution Approximation Algorithm for Single Machine Scheduling in Uncertain Environments

In the current work we introduce a novel estimation of distribution algorithm to tackle a hard combinatorial optimization problem, namely the single-machine scheduling problem, with uncertain delivery times. The majority of the existing research coping with optimization problems in uncertain environment aims at finding a single sufficiently robust solution so that random noise and unpredictable circumstances would have the least possible detrimental effect on the quality of the solution. The measures of robustness are usually based on various kinds of empirically designed averaging techniques. In contrast to the previous work, our algorithm aims at finding a collection of robust schedules that allow for a more informative decision making. The notion of robustness is measured quantitatively in terms of the classical mathematical notion of a norm on a vector space. We provide a theoretical insight into the relationship between the properties of the probability distribution over the uncertain delivery times and the robustness quality of the schedules produced by the algorithm after a polynomial runtime in terms of approximation ratios

AI and OR in management of operations: history and trends

The last decade has seen a considerable growth in the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for operations management with the aim of finding solutions to problems that are increasing in complexity and scale. This paper begins by setting the context for the survey through a historical perspective of OR and AI. An extensive survey of applications of AI techniques for operations management, covering a total of over 1200 papers published from 1995 to 2004 is then presented. The survey utilizes Elsevier's ScienceDirect database as a source. Hence, the survey may not cover all the relevant journals but includes a sufficiently wide range of publications to make it representative of the research in the field. The papers are categorized into four areas of operations management: (a) design, (b) scheduling, (c) process planning and control and (d) quality, maintenance and fault diagnosis. Each of the four areas is categorized in terms of the AI techniques used: genetic algorithms, case-based reasoning, knowledge-based systems, fuzzy logic and hybrid techniques. The trends over the last decade are identified, discussed with respect to expected trends and directions for future work suggested

Performance-based control system design automation via evolutionary computing

This paper develops an evolutionary algorithm (EA) based methodology for computer-aided control system design (CACSD) automation in both the time and frequency domains under performance satisfactions. The approach is automated by efficient evolution from plant step response data, bypassing the system identification or linearization stage as required by conventional designs. Intelligently guided by the evolutionary optimization, control engineers are able to obtain a near-optimal ‘‘off-thecomputer’’ controller by feeding the developed CACSD system with plant I/O data and customer specifications without the need of a differentiable performance index. A speedup of near-linear pipelineability is also observed for the EA parallelism implemented on a network of transputers of Parsytec SuperCluster. Validation results against linear and nonlinear physical plants are convincing, with good closed-loop performance and robustness in the presence of practical constraints and perturbations