Integrated Scheduling of Quay Cranes and Automated Lifting Vehicles in Automated Container Terminal with Unlimited Buffer Space

Automation of the processes at the quays of the world's large container ports is one of the answers to the required ever-increasing transshipment volumes within the same timeframe. For such purpose, using new generation of vehicles is unavoidable. One of the automatic vehicles that can be used in container terminals is Automated Lifting Vehicle (ALV). Integrated scheduling of handling equipments with quay cranes can increase the efficiency of automated transport systems in container. In this paper, an integrated scheduling of quay cranes and automated lifting vehicles with limited buffer space is formulated as a mixed integer linear programming model. This model minimizes the makespan of all the loading and unloading tasks for a pre-defined set of cranes in a scheduling problem.

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Application of hybrid GA-PSO based on intelligent control fuzzy system in the integrated scheduling in automated container terminal

Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems ◽

10.3233/jifs-179926 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1-14

Author(s):

Meisu Zhong ◽

Yongsheng Yang ◽

Yamin Zhou ◽

Octavian Postolache

Keyword(s):

Intelligent Control ◽

Fuzzy System ◽

Container Terminal ◽

Integrated Scheduling ◽

Automated Container Terminal

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Performance Analysis on Transfer Platforms in Frame Bridge Based Automated Container Terminals

Mathematical Problems in Engineering ◽

10.1155/2013/593847 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 2013 ◽

pp. 1-8 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Hongtao Hu ◽

Byung Kwon Lee ◽

Youfang Huang ◽

Loo Hay Lee ◽

Ek Peng Chew

Keyword(s):

Markov Chain ◽

Performance Analysis ◽

Markov Chain Model ◽

Container Terminal ◽

Container Terminals ◽

Automated Guided Vehicles ◽

Chain Model ◽

Quay Cranes ◽

Automated Container Terminal ◽

Multistory Frame

This paper studies a new automated container terminal (ACT) system which utilizes multistory frame bridges and rail-mounted trolleys to transport containers between the quay and the yard. Beside typical ACT systems use trucks or automated guided vehicles for transporting containers between quay cranes and yard cranes, the new design uses three types of handling machines, namely, ground trolleys (GTs), transfer platforms (TPs), and frame trolleys (FTs). These three types of handling machines collaborate with one another to transport containers. This study decomposes the system into several subsystems. Each subsystem has one TP and several FTs and GTs dedicated to this TP. Then, a Markov chain model is developed to analyze the throughput of TPs. At last, the performance of the new ACT system is estimated. Sensitivity analyzes the numbers, and the processing rates of trolleys are conducted through the numeric experiments.

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Integrated Dispatching Model of Automated Lifting Vehicles, Quay Cranes and Yard Cranes at Automated Container Terminal

Applied Mechanics and Materials ◽

10.4028/www.scientific.net/amm.564.678 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 564 ◽

pp. 678-683 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Seyed Hamidreza Sadeghian ◽

M.K.A.M. Ariffin ◽

S.H. Tang ◽

N. Ismail

Keyword(s):

Integer Programming ◽

Mixed Integer Programming ◽

Programming Model ◽

Container Terminal ◽

Mixed Integer ◽

Integer Programming Model ◽

Mixed Integer Programming Model ◽

Quay Cranes ◽

Automated Container Terminal ◽

Loading And Unloading

Integration of various types of handling equipment is one of the important methods to improve the efficiency of processes and productivity of a container terminal. Using ALVs, because of their ability in lifting a container from the ground by themselves, can reduce the delay of loading and unloading tasks in automatic container terminals.In this paper, a mixed-integer programming model, which considers the integration of ALVs, Quay Cranes and Yard Cranes, is developed. This model minimizes the makespan of the loading and unloading activities in an Automatic Container Terminal with limited buffer spaces.

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Integrated scheduling optimization of U-shaped automated container terminal under loading and unloading mode

Computers & Industrial Engineering ◽

10.1016/j.cie.2021.107695 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 107695

Author(s):

Bowei Xu ◽

Depei Jie ◽

Junjun Li ◽

Yongsheng Yang ◽

Furong Wen ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Container Terminal ◽

Scheduling Optimization ◽

Integrated Scheduling ◽

Automated Container Terminal ◽

Loading And Unloading

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Noisy Optimization of Dispatching Policy for the Cranes at the Storage Yard in an Automated Container Terminal

Applied Sciences ◽

10.3390/app11156922 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (15) ◽

pp. 6922

Author(s):

Jeongmin Kim ◽

Ellen J. Hong ◽

Youngjee Yang ◽

Kwang Ryel Ryu

Keyword(s):

Container Terminal ◽

Scoring Function ◽

Weight Vector ◽

Container Terminals ◽

Exploration And Exploitation ◽

Noisy Optimization ◽

Automated Container Terminal ◽

Simulation Based ◽

The Cost ◽

Operation Schedule

In this paper, we claim that the operation schedule of automated stacking cranes (ASC) in the storage yard of automated container terminals can be built effectively and efficiently by using a crane dispatching policy, and propose a noisy optimization algorithm named N-RTS that can derive such a policy efficiently. To select a job for an ASC, our dispatching policy uses a multi-criteria scoring function to calculate the score of each candidate job using a weighted summation of the evaluations in those criteria. As the calculated score depends on the respective weights of these criteria, and thus a different weight vector gives rise to a different best candidate, a weight vector can be deemed as a policy. A good weight vector, or policy, can be found by a simulation-based search where a candidate policy is evaluated through a computationally expensive simulation of applying the policy to some operation scenarios. We may simplify the simulation to save time but at the cost of sacrificing the evaluation accuracy. N-RTS copes with this dilemma by maintaining a good balance between exploration and exploitation. Experimental results show that the policy derived by N-RTS outperforms other ASC scheduling methods. We also conducted additional experiments using some benchmark functions to validate the performance of N-RTS.

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