Configuration Selection for Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems by Means of Characteristic State Space

The configuration selection for reconfigurable manufacturing systems（RMS） have been tackled in a number of studies by using analytical or simulation models. The simulation models are usually based on fewer assumptions than the analytical models and therefore are more wildly used in modeling complex RMS. But in the absence of an efficient gradient analysis method of the objective function, it is time-consuming in solving large-scale problems by using a simulation model coupled with a meta-heuristics algorithm. In this paper, a new approach by means of characteristic state space is presented to improve the efficiency of the configuration selection for an RMS. First, a characteristic state equation is set up to represent the input and the output resources of each basic activity in an RMS. A production process model in terms of matrix equations is established by iterating the equations of basic activities according to the resource flows. This model introduces the production process into a characteristic state space for further analysis. Second, the properties of the characteristic state space are presented. On the basis of these properties, the configuration selection in an RMS is considered as a path-planning problem, and the gradient of the objective function is computed. Modified simulated annealing（SA） is also presented, in which neighborhood generation is guided by the gradient to accelerate convergence and reduce the run time of the optimization procedure. Finally, several case studies on the configuration selection for some actual reconfigurable assembly job-shops are presented and compared to the classical SA. The comparison shows relatively positive results. This study provides a more efficient configuration selection approach by using the gradient of the objective function and presents the relevant theories on which it is based.

Location and Capacity Determination Method of Electric Vehicle Charging Station Based on Simulated Annealing Immune Particle Swarm Optimization

As the number of electric vehicles(EVs)continues to grow and the demand for charging infrastructure is also increasing,how to improve the charging infrastructure has become a bottleneck restricting the development of EVs.In other words,reasonably planning the location and capacity of charging stations is important for development of the EV industry and the safe and stable operation of the power system.Considering the construction and maintenance of the charging station,the distribution network loss of the charging station,and the economic loss on the user side of the EV,this paper takes the node and capacity of charging station planning as control variables and the minimum cost of system comprehensive planning as objective function,and thus proposes a location and capacity planning model for the EV charging station.Based on the problems of low efficiency and insufficient global optimization ability of the current algorithm,the simulated annealing immune particle swarm optimization algorithm(SA-IPSO)is adopted in this paper.The simulated annealing algorithm is used in the global update of the particle swarm optimization(PSO),and the immune mechanism is introduced to participate in the iterative update of the particles,so as to improve the speed and efficiency of PSO.Voronoi diagram is used to divide service area of the charging station,and a joint solution process of Voronoi diagram and SA-IPSO is proposed.By example analysis,the results show that the optimal solution corresponding to the optimisation method proposed in this paper has a low overall cost,while the average charging waiting time is only 1.8 min and the charging pile utilisation rate is 75.5%.The simulation comparison verifies that the improved algorithm improves the operational efficiency by 18.1%and basically does not fall into local convergence.