ACO with automatic parameter selection for a scheduling problem with a group cumulative constraint

International audienceWe consider a RCPSP (resource constrained project scheduling problem), the goal of which is to schedule jobs on machines in order to minimise job tardiness. This problem comes from a real industrial application, and it requires an additional constraint which is a generalisation of the classical cumulative constraint: jobs are partitioned into groups, and the number of active groups must never exceeds a given capacity (where a group is active when some of its jobs have started while some others are not yet completed).We first study the complexity of this new constraint. Then, we describe an Ant Colony Optimisation algorithm to solve our problem, and we compare three different pheromone structures for it. We study the influence of parameters on the solving process, and show that it varies from an instance to another. Hence, we identify a subset of parameter settings with complementary strengths and weaknesses, and we use a per-instance algorithm selector in order to select the best setting for each new instance to solve. We experimentally compare our approach with a tabu search approach and an exact approach on a data set coming from our industrial application

Performance Analysis of ACO and FA Algorithms on Parameter Variation Scenarios in Determining Alternative Routes for Cars as a Solution to Traffic Jams

This study proposes several alternative optimal routes on traffic-prone routes using Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) and Firefly Algorithm (FA). Two methods are classified as the metaheuristic method, which means that they can solve problems with complex optimization and will get the solution with the best results. Comparison of alternative routes generated by the two algorithms is measured based on several parameters, namely alpha and beta in determination of the best alternative route. The results obtained are that the alternative route produced by FA is superior to ACO, with an accuracy of 88%. This is also supported by the performance of the FA algorithm which is generally superior, where the resulting alternative route is shorter in distance, time, running time and  there is no influence on the alpha parameter value. But in each iteration, the number of alternative routes generated is less. The contribution of this research is to provide information about the best algorithm between ACO and FA in providing the most optimal alternative route based on the fastest travel time. The recommended alternative path is a path that is sufficient for cars to pass, because the selection takes into account the size of the road capacity

Ant Colony Optimization

Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) is the best example of how studies aimed at understanding and modeling the behavior of ants and other social insects can provide inspiration for the development of computational algorithms for the solution of difficult mathematical problems. Introduced by Marco Dorigo in his PhD thesis (1992) and initially applied to the travelling salesman problem, the ACO field has experienced a tremendous growth, standing today as an important nature-inspired stochastic metaheuristic for hard optimization problems. This book presents state-of-the-art ACO methods and is divided into two parts: (I) Techniques, which includes parallel implementations, and (II) Applications, where recent contributions of ACO to diverse fields, such as traffic congestion and control, structural optimization, manufacturing, and genomics are presented

Search based software engineering: Trends, techniques and applications

© ACM, 2012. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version is available from the link below.In the past five years there has been a dramatic increase in work on Search-Based Software Engineering (SBSE), an approach to Software Engineering (SE) in which Search-Based Optimization (SBO) algorithms are used to address problems in SE. SBSE has been applied to problems throughout the SE lifecycle, from requirements and project planning to maintenance and reengineering. The approach is attractive because it offers a suite of adaptive automated and semiautomated solutions in situations typified by large complex problem spaces with multiple competing and conflicting objectives. This article provides a review and classification of literature on SBSE. The work identifies research trends and relationships between the techniques applied and the applications to which they have been applied and highlights gaps in the literature and avenues for further research.EPSRC and E

Improving just-in-time delivery performance of IoT-enabled flexible manufacturing systems with AGV based material transportation

Autonomous guided vehicles (AGVs) are driverless material handling systems used for transportation of pallets and line side supply of materials to provide flexibility and agility in shop-floor logistics. Scheduling of shop-floor logistics in such systems is a challenging task due to their complex nature associated with the multiple part types and alternate material transfer routings. This paper presents a decision support system capable of supporting shop-floor decision-making activities during the event of manufacturing disruptions by automatically adjusting both AGV and machine schedules in Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMSs). The proposed system uses discrete event simulation (DES) models enhanced by the Internet-of-Things (IoT) enabled digital integration and employs a nonlinear mixed integer programming Genetic Algorithm (GA) to find near-optimal production schedules prioritising the just-in-time (JIT) material delivery performance and energy efficiency of the material transportation. The performance of the proposed system is tested on the Integrated Manufacturing and Logistics (IML) demonstrator at WMG, University of Warwick. The results showed that the developed system can find the near-optimal solutions for production schedules subjected to production anomalies in a negligible time, thereby supporting shop-floor decision-making activities effectively and rapidly

Improving just-in-time delivery performance of IoT-enabled flexible manufacturing systems with AGV based material transportation

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Autonomous guided vehicles (AGVs) are driverless material handling systems used for transportation of pallets and line side supply of materials to provide flexibility and agility in shop-floor logistics. Scheduling of shop-floor logistics in such systems is a challenging task due to their complex nature associated with the multiple part types and alternate material transfer routings. This paper presents a decision support system capable of supporting shop-floor decision-making activities during the event of manufacturing disruptions by automatically adjusting both AGV and machine schedules in Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMSs). The proposed system uses discrete event simulation (DES) models enhanced by the Internet-of-Things (IoT) enabled digital integration and employs a nonlinear mixed integer programming Genetic Algorithm (GA) to find near-optimal production schedules prioritising the just-in-time (JIT) material delivery performance and energy efficiency of the material transportation. The performance of the proposed system is tested on the Integrated Manufacturing and Logistics (IML) demonstrator at WMG, University of Warwick. The results showed that the developed system can find the near-optimal solutions for production schedules subjected to production anomalies in a negligible time, thereby supporting shop-floor decision-making activities effectively and rapidly

Computational intelligence approaches to robotics, automation, and control [Volume guest editors]

No abstract available

Dispatching and Rescheduling Tasks and Their Interactions with Travel Demand and the Energy Domain: Models and Algorithms

Abstract The paper aims to provide an overview of the key factors to consider when performing reliable modelling of rail services. Given our underlying belief that to build a robust simulation environment a rail service cannot be considered an isolated system, also the connected systems, which influence and, in turn, are influenced by such services, must be properly modelled. For this purpose, an extensive overview of the rail simulation and optimisation models proposed in the literature is first provided. Rail simulation models are classified according to the level of detail implemented (microscopic, mesoscopic and macroscopic), the variables involved (deterministic and stochastic) and the processing techniques adopted (synchronous and asynchronous). By contrast, within rail optimisation models, both planning (timetabling) and management (rescheduling) phases are discussed. The main issues concerning the interaction of rail services with travel demand flows and the energy domain are also described. Finally, in an attempt to provide a comprehensive framework an overview of the main metaheuristic resolution techniques used in the planning and management phases is shown

Symbiotic Organisms Search Algorithm: theory, recent advances and applications

The symbiotic organisms search algorithm is a very promising recent metaheuristic algorithm. It has received a plethora of attention from all areas of numerical optimization research, as well as engineering design practices. it has since undergone several modifications, either in the form of hybridization or as some other improved variants of the original algorithm. However, despite all the remarkable achievements and rapidly expanding body of literature regarding the symbiotic organisms search algorithm within its short appearance in the field of swarm intelligence optimization techniques, there has been no collective and comprehensive study on the success of the various implementations of this algorithm. As a way forward, this paper provides an overview of the research conducted on symbiotic organisms search algorithms from inception to the time of writing, in the form of details of various application scenarios with variants and hybrid implementations, and suggestions for future research directions