Operational efficiency is one of the key performance indicators of a port’s service level. In the process of making scheduling plans for container terminals, different types of equipment are usually scheduled separately. The interaction between quay cranes (QCs) and automated guided vehicles (AGVs) is neglected, which results in low operational efficiency. This research explores the integrated scheduling problem of QCs and AGVs. Firstly, a multi-objective mixed integer programming model (MOMIP) is conducted, with the aim of minimizing the makespan of vessels and the unladen time of AGVs. Then, embedded with a new heuristic method, the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II (NSGA-II) is designed for the scheduling problem. The heuristic method includes two parts: a bay-based QC allocation strategy and a container-based QC-AGV scheduling strategy. Finally, in order to test the performance of the proposed algorithm, differently sized benchmark tests are performed, and the results are compared to the multi-objective particle swarm optimization algorithm (MOPSO) and the weighted-sum method. The computational results indicate that the proposed algorithm can effectively solve the multi-objective integrated scheduling problem of QCs and AGVs. For large-scale problems, the NSGA-II algorithm has better performance and more obvious advantages compared to others. The proposed method has the capability of providing a theoretical reference for the QC and AGV scheduling of container terminals.

To solve the global path planning problem of the ship in the static and dynamic environment, we propose an improved ant colony algorithm to plan the ship's navigation path. We use the artificial potential field method to compute the force direction of the ship at the initial iteration stage. The attraction potential field function is modified to improve the iteration efficiency of the hybrid ant colony algorithm. We design the pseudo-random state transition rule and improve the convergence of the hybrid algorithm by strengthening the selection of good paths. When updating the pheromone, we consider the path's length, safety, and smoothness to plan a safer navigation path. The simulation results show that the improved ant colony algorithm has a faster convergence speed than the original ant colony algorithm. The optimal solution quality is higher, which can realize global ship path planning in static and dynamic environments.

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In order to evaluate the ship trajectory more reasonable based on the quantitative information. This paper presents a new approach to evaluate the inward-port single ship trajectory quantitatively based on ship-handling simulator. First, a ship tracking points generating algorithm is proposed to generate sufficient tracking points in order to address the issue that the sample information is not enough on the ship simulator. Second, three reference tracking belts are established based on the sample data and cloud drop contribution degrees for the scenario that the collected samples information are enough. Finally, a quantitative score evaluation method that combines the qualitative information and the quantitative information is proposed, the similarity measurement results verify that the MES algorithm is more reasonable, the evaluation results of inward-port single ship trajectory illustrative that the proposed method is effective when applied to quantitative evaluation problems.