A Rapid Search Method for Scheduling Delivery of Multiple Automated Guided Vehicles

Abstract

In this study, a method was developed to address the automated guided vehicle (AGV) transportation scheduling problem. For deliveries in factories and warehouses, it is necessary to quickly plan a feasible transportation schedule without delay within a specified time. This study focused on obtaining a transport schedule without delay from the specified time while maintaining the search for a better solution during the execution of the transport task. Accordingly, a method was developed for constructing a solution with a two-dimensional array of delivery tasks for each AGV, arranged in the order in which they are executed, as well as for searching for a schedule by performing exchange and insertion operations. For the exchange and insertion, a method that considers the connectivity between the end point of a task and the start point of the next task was adopted. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, numerical simulations were performed assuming an actual transportation task.