Evolutionary Algorithm-Based Energy-Aware Path Planning with a Quadrotor for Warehouse Inventory Management

Abstract

Quadrotors have been vital for automating warehouse processes. However, a significant gap in recent studies is that they use a single quadrotor with limited battery life, considering that their objective involves navigation in a large-scale environment such as a warehouse. Using an energy consumption model to enable more efficient navigation can be explored. Conventional data-driven energy models and path planning algorithms are insufficient for describing the various motions that a quadrotor can perform in warehouse operations, such as changes in yaw. This study aims to design a novel exhaustive data-driven energy consumption model and evolutionary algorithm-based path planning algorithm to consider various quadrotor movements involved in warehouse operations. The quadrotor is tasked with performing a set of movements to each be represented as a power equation in terms of their velocity. The obtained equations were subsequently used as the primary optimization objective for the path planning algorithm, which included yaw angle objectives and constraints. A set of experiments was performed with Crazyflie quadrotors to verify the model and the algorithm. The results showcased the accuracy of the energy consumption model, which was kept at a maximum difference of 0.6%. The designed path planning algorithm obtained greater energy efficiency in the generated paths compared to other state-of-the-art evolutionary algorithms with similar objectives and constraints. Doi: 10.28991/HIJ-2023-04-04-012 Full Text: PDF

Requirements Engineering of Knowledge Management System for Smallholder Dairy Farmers

“…Livestock extension workers are educated people assigned to educate farmers to increase their productivity. In addition, extension agents also play a role in promoting and studying farmers, innovation, and changes in farmers behavior [50,51]. Literature studies were conducted to identify the factors that influence the success of knowledge sharing gained from previous studies.…”

SY-MIS Project: Biomedical Design of Endo-Robotic and Laparoscopic Training System for Surgery on the Earth and Space

“…Given the importance of training in laparoscopic and robotic surgery to meet these demands, simulation technology appeared as a tool for surgeons to enhance their technical and non-technical laparoscopic and robotic skills. The use of simulation technology has increased over the last few years and now has become essential for surgical training [20,21], including space surgery clinical-fellowships [22]. In addition, laparoscopic training models such as the Ergo-Lap, the LapaRobot, and the EoSim Box were home-made to decrease costs and even showed similar results in Likert Scale questionnaires compared to those obtained by using sophisticated trainers.…”