A Simulation Model for the Planning and Control of Agvs at Automated Container Terminals

Abstract

In order to accommodate the growing intercontinental container transport, port facilities have to be up-scaled drastically. The challenge is to develop facilities that can handle a new generation of ships, the jumbo container vessels, with a capacity of 8,000 TEU (Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit) or more. The total in-port time to serve these jumbos is set at 24 hours. This amounts to almost double the loading/unloading flows that can be achieved at present. These flows cannot be met by the present quay transport. In this study the modeling of a quay transport system which is carried out by automated guided vehicles (AGVs) is described. The model is applied to the current Delta Sealand container terminal (DSL) of ECT Rotterdam to obtain some degree of reference.

Emerging technology and management research in the container terminals: Trends and the COVID-19 pandemic impacts

“…From the management perspective, Bian et al (2015) investigated at vehicle dispatching problem with long travelling distance which is affected by battery constraint. Gerrits et al (2018) presented a scalable and flexible agent-based simulation model for the planning and control of AGVs. One of the agents is to maintain the battery status of the AGVs and is responsible for effective charging schedules.…”

A General Simulation Framework for Smart Yards

“…More specifically, we use DES for all processes at the Smart Yard, and use ABS for conflict handling by AGVs and the assignment of AGVs to transportation demand of LCs. For the control of AGVs, we use the Multi-Agent System from Gerrits, Mes, and Schuur (2018). In their simulation study on automated container terminals, they propose a three-level system: a high-level control layer for terminal operations planning, a mid-level layer to efficiently manage the terminal equipment based on the planning coming from the higher level, and a lowlevel layer to model sensors and movements (e.g., turning, breaking) of each AGV.…”

Mixing Automated with Non-Automated Yard Traffic in Container Terminals: a Digital Transition

“…As pointed out by [17], it is a challenge to integrate automated and non-automated cargo handling equipment. Close to this research is the work of [18] which explores AGVs at perpendicularly oriented ACTs but does not allow for nonautomated handling equipment. Since current literature does not adequately address the impact of allowing mixed traffic in ACTs, we aim to fill this gap by exploring the potential and implications of mixing AYTs with manual yard traffic.…”