Dynamic reactive assignment of tasks in real-time automated guided vehicle environments with potential interruptions

An efficient management of production plants has to consider several external and internal factors, such as potential interruptions of the ongoing processes. Automated guided vehicles (AGVs) are becoming a widespread technology that offers many advantages. These AGVs can perform complex tasks in an autonomous way. However, an inefficient schedule of the tasks assigned to an AGV can suffer from unwanted interruptions and idle times, which in turn will affect the total time required by the AGV to complete its assigned tasks. In order to avoid these issues, this paper proposes a heuristic-based approach that: (i) makes use of a delay matrix to estimate circuit delays for different daily times; (ii) employs these estimates to define an initial itinerary of tasks for an AGV; and (iii) dynamically adjusts the initial agenda as new information on actual delays is obtained by the system. The objective is to minimize the total time required for the AGV to complete all the assigned tasks, taking into account situations that generate unexpected disruptions along the circuits that the AGV follows. In order to test and validate the proposed approach, a series of computational experiments utilizing real-life data are carried out. These experiments allow us to measure the improvement gap with respect to the former policy used by the system managers.This work has been partially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism (AEI-010500-2021b-54), the EU Comission (HORIZON-CL4-2021-TWIN-TRANSITION-01-07, 101057294 AIDEAS), and the Generalitat Valenciana (PROMETEO/2021/065).Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Modelling flexible manufacturing systems through discrete event simulation

As customisation and product diversification are becoming standard, industry is looking for strategies to become more adaptable in responding to customer’s needs. Flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) provide a unique capability where there is a need to provide efficiency through production flexibility. Full potential of FMS development is difficult to achieve due to the variability of components within this complex manufacturing system. It has been recognised that there is a requirement for decision support tools to address different aspects of FMS development. Discrete event simulation (DES) is the most common tool used in manufacturing sector for solving complex problems. Through systematic literature review, the need for a conceptual framework for decision support in FMS using DES has been identified. Within this thesis, the conceptual framework (CF) for decision support for FMS using DES has been proposed. The CF is designed based on decision-making areas identified for FMS development in literature and through industry stakeholder feedback: set-up, flexibility and schedule configuration. The CF has been validated through four industrial simulation case studies developed as a part of implementation of a new FMS plant in automotive sector. The research focuses on: (1) a method for primary data collection for simulation validated through a case study of material handling robot behaviour in FMS; (2) an approach for evaluation of optimal production set-up for industrial FMS with DES; (3) a DES based approach for testing FMS flexibility levels; (4) an approach for testing scheduling in FMS with the use of DES. The study has supported the development of systematic approach for decision making in FMS development using DES. The approach provided tools for evidence based decision making in FMS

Intelligent Simulation Modeling of a Flexible Manufacturing System with Automated Guided Vehicles

Although simulation is a very flexible and cost effective problem solving technique, it has been traditionally limited to building models which are merely descriptive of the system under study. Relatively new approaches combine improvement heuristics and artificial intelligence with simulation to provide prescriptive power in simulation modeling. This study demonstrates the synergy obtained by bringing together the "learning automata theory" and simulation analysis. Intelligent objects are embedded in the simulation model of a Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS), in which Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) serve as the material handling system between four unique workcenters. The objective of the study is to find satisfactory AGV routing patterns along available paths to minimize the mean time spent by different kinds of parts in the system. System parameters such as different part routing and processing time requirements, arrivals distribution, number of palettes, available paths between workcenters, number and speed of AGVs can be defined by the user. The network of learning automata acts as the decision maker driving the simulation, and the FMS model acts as the training environment for the automata network; providing realistic, yet cost-effective and risk-free feedback. Object oriented design and implementation of the simulation model with a process oriented world view, graphical animation and visually interactive simulation (using GUI objects such as windows, menus, dialog boxes; mouse sensitive dynamic automaton trace charts and dynamic graphical statistical monitoring) are other issues dealt with in the study

An Efficient Approach for Line-Following Automated Guided Vehicles Based on Fuzzy Inference Mechanism

Recently, there has been increasing attention paid to AGV (Automated Guided Vehicle) in factories and warehouses to enhance the level of automation. In order to improve productivity, it is necessary to increase the efficiency of the AGV, including working speed and accuracy. This study presents a fuzzy-PID controller for improving the efficiency of a line-following AGV. A line-following AGV suffers from tracking errors, especially on curved paths, which causes a delay in the lap time. The fuzzy-PID controller in this study mimics the principle of human vehicle control as the situation-aware speed adjustment on curved paths. Consequently, it is possible to reduce the tracking error of AGV and improve its speed. Experimental results show that the Fuzzy-PID controller outperforms the PID controller in both accuracy and speed, especially the lap time of a line-following AGV is enhanced up to 28.6% with the proposed fuzzy-PID controller compared to that with the PID controller only

Control of free-ranging automated guided vehicles in container terminals

Container terminal automation has come to the fore during the last 20 years to improve their efficiency. Whereas a high level of automation has already been achieved in vertical handling operations (stacking cranes), horizontal container transport still has disincentives to the adoption of automated guided vehicles (AGVs) due to a high degree of operational complexity of vehicles. This feature has led to the employment of simple AGV control techniques while hindering the vehicles to utilise their maximum operational capability. In AGV dispatching, vehicles cannot amend ongoing delivery assignments although they have yet to receive the corresponding containers. Therefore, better AGV allocation plans would be discarded that can only be achieved by task reassignment. Also, because of the adoption of predetermined guide paths, AGVs are forced to deploy a highly limited range of their movement abilities while increasing required travel distances for handling container delivery jobs. To handle the two main issues, an AGV dispatching model and a fleet trajectory planning algorithm are proposed. The dispatcher achieves job assignment flexibility by allowing AGVs towards to container origins to abandon their current duty and receive new tasks. The trajectory planner advances Dubins curves to suggest diverse optional paths per origin-destination pair. It also amends vehicular acceleration rates for resolving conflicts between AGVs. In both of the models, the framework of simulated annealing was applied to resolve inherent time complexity. To test and evaluate the sophisticated AGV control models for vehicle dispatching and fleet trajectory planning, a bespoke simulation model is also proposed. A series of simulation tests were performed based on a real container terminal with several performance indicators, and it is identified that the presented dispatcher outperforms conventional vehicle dispatching heuristics in AGV arrival delay time and setup travel time, and the fleet trajectory planner can suggest shorter paths than the corresponding Manhattan distances, especially with fewer AGVs.Open Acces

AGW for efficient freight transport in container yard: models and costs

Abstract Different modes of transport are frequently used to transfer goods from origin to destination, especially on medium-long distances, in relation to the network supply, the available services, the costs. The transfer from one carrier to another, in an interchange node such as a port, a rail station, a logistics terminal, often implicates an increase of monetary and temporal costs, connected to material and immaterial operations. The principal aim is to minimize the overall cost of transport, but the freight interchange node can represent critical steps in logistics chain and for this reason much attention is now committed to actions to make efficient the functional organization of the terminal. In the last years an increasing interest is directed to the use of vehicles technologically advanced with automation of functions. The paper focuses on a particular technology, conceived recently, otherwise an intelligent rail wagon called AGW (Automated Guided Wagon) for handling of containers in a port. The use of intelligent system AGW as handling unit of containers in the yard, would allow the overcoming of diseconomies of scale and the reduction of the handling times and costs through a flexible management in relation to the characteristics of the transport supply and demand, the latter subject to a high variability. In the paper, after a brief description of the AGW technology and the advantages connected to the use of this handling system in a freight interchange node, the attention is focused on a comparative analysis between the handling system now operating in the container port (RTG, Straddle Carrier, AVG, etc.) and the system that involves the use of AGW. This analysis is made on the operational characteristics of the different handling systems, through the use of: functional schemes, with the aim to carry out evaluations related to the spatial, organizational and relational structure of container yard equipped with different handling unit; network models (graphical representation of links and paths; basic cost parameters) for the schematization and simulation of container handling in the yard; cost models for quantitative evaluation of monetary and temporal impacts, that derive from the use of different handling unit in the yard

Development of deterministic collision-avoidance algorithms for routing automated guided vehicles

A manufacturing job spends a small portion of its total flow time being processed on machines, and during the remaining time, either it is in a queue or being transported from one work center to another. In a fully automated material-handling environment, automated guided vehicles (AGV) perform the function of transporting the jobs between workstations, and high operational costs are involved in these material-handling activities. Consequently, the AGV route schedule dictates subsequent work-center scheduling. For an AGV job transportation schedule to be effective, the issue of collisions amongst AGV during travel needs to be addressed. Such collisions cause stalemate situations that potentially disrupt the flow of materials in the job shop, adding to the non-value time of job processing, and thus, increase the material handling and inventory holding costs. The current research goal was to develop a methodology that could effectively and efficiently derive optimal AGV routes for a given set of transportation requests, considering the issue of collisions amongst AGV during travel. As part of the solution approach in the proposed work, an integer linear program was formulated in Phase I with the capability of optimally predicting the AGV routes for a deterministic set of transportation requests. Collision avoidance constraints were developed in this model. The model was programmed using OPL / Visual Basic, and the program feasibility were experimentally analyzed for different problem domain specifications. Due to the complexity and combinatorial nature of the formulation in Phase I, computationally it was expected to be NP-Hard. Hence, to improve the computation prediction capability (estimation of upper bounds), it was required that in Phase II, heuristics be developed to relax the computational complexity of the original problem. In Phase III, experimental techniques were used to compute the lower and upper bounds of the original problem. The performances of the different heuristics were compared using experimental analysis

Dynamical Analysis of a Navigation Algorithm

There is presently a need for more robust navigation algorithms for autonomous industrial vehicles. These have reasonably guaranteed the adequate reliability of the navigation. In the current work, the stability of a modified algorithm for collision-free guiding of this type of vehicle is ensured. A lateral control and a longitudinal control are implemented. To demonstrate their viability, a stability analysis employing the Lyapunov method is carried out. In addition, this mathematical analysis enables the constants of the designed algorithm to be determined. In conjunction with the navigation algorithm, the present work satisfactorily solves the localization problem, also known as simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM). Simultaneously, a convolutional neural network is managed, which is used to calculate the trajectory to be followed by the AGV, by implementing the artificial vision. The use of neural networks for image processing is considered to constitute the most robust and flexible method for realising a navigation algorithm. In this way, the autonomous vehicle is provided with considerable autonomy. It can be regarded that the designed algorithm is adequate, being able to trace any type of path.The current study has been sponsored by the Government of the Basque Country-ELKARTEK21/10 KK-2021/00014 (“Estudio de nuevas técnicas de inteligencia artificial basadas en Deep Learning dirigidas a la optimización de procesos industriales”) research program