Time Window Based Genetic Algorithm for Multi-AGVs Conflict-free Path Planning in Automated Container Terminals.

The continuously increasing demand for containers makes it difficult for traditional ports to bear the heavy workload. As a result, the transformation of traditional ports into automated container terminals (ACTs) has already become a vital trend for the shipping industry. Nowadays, the automated guided vehicle (AGV) is widely used in ACTs. It becomes one of the main handling equipment for the loading and unloading of goods. However, the conflicts that occur among AGVs will influence the operating efficiency of ACTs. To achieve conflict-free path planning, the problem of path planning is modeled as min-max mathematical programming in this paper. Then, the time window-based Genetic Algorithm (TWGA) is proposed to solve the problem. To verify the performance of TWGA, different cases with small-scale and large-scale are used to test the ability to find the optimal solution of the algorithm. Results illustrate that the proposed algorithm could effectively reduce the conflicts among AGVs, and outperforms the compared algorithm.