A Study on Optimizing the Double-Spine Type Flow Path Design for the Overhead Transportation System Using Tabu Search Algorithm

Optimizing Flow Path Design(FPD)is a popular research area in transportation system design,but its application to Overhead Transportation Systems(OTSs)has been limited.This study focuses on optimizing a double-spine flow path design for OTSs with 10 stations by minimizing the total travel distance for both loaded and empty flows.We employ transportation methods,specifically the North-West Corner and Stepping-Stone methods,to determine empty vehicle travel flows.Additionally,the Tabu Search(TS)algorithm is applied to branch the 10 stations into two main layout branches.The results obtained from our proposed method demonstrate a reduction in the objective function value compared to the initial feasible solution.Furthermore,we explore howchanges in the parameters of the TS algorithm affect the optimal result.We validate the feasibility of our approach by comparing it with relevant literature and conducting additional tests on layouts with 20 and 30 stations.

Controllers Design for the Multi-Shuttle and Multi-Station Transportation System

Nowadays, the Multi-Shuttle and Multi-Station Transportation System (MMTS) is one of the most interesting research topics in many fields of industries. It is an effective solution to reduce unexpected accidents that occur during transportation as well as increase productivity in manufacturing. The aim of this paper is to introduce the controller design for the MMTS which is built in our BK-Recme BioMech Lab at Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (VNU-HCM), Viet Nam. Based on the design of this system, the control algorithms will be conducted to check the operation of the whole system. To evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of this model, we design a series of random instances for different quantities of nodes as well as the different quantities of shuttles. Our system includes 4 stations and 6 shuttles which are assembled in the serial chain system. However, the number of stations and number of shuttles can be expanded to any desired ones which are based on the requirement of the industries. In this paper, we mainly focus on the controller design of this system to make it operate in an effective way that the goods will be transported and delivered to the target station as fast as possible. In order to solve the large-scale instances and realistic transport problems, we propose three algorithms for three progresses as shuttles calling, path reading and shuttles communicating. The shuttles calling is to decide which shuttle should be called to the start-node. Path reading to determine the shortest way to go from start-node to end-node. Finally, shuttles communicating, which allow one shuttle to interact with the next shuttles so we have a loop of orders (shuttle 1 to shuttle 2;shuttle 2 to shuttle 3;etc.;shuttle n-1 to shuttle n). This proposes solution can help us to solve the huge numbers of shuttles and stations in the system. The specific result of this study is applying Dijkstra’s algorithm to propose an algorithm that allows handling a transportation system without caring about the number of shuttles as well as the number of stations for the closed-loop path. Several test problems are carried out in order to check the feasibility and the effectiveness of our purposed control algorithm.