Cooperative Scheduling of AGV and ASC in Automation Container Terminal Relay Operation Mode

The key problem of operation optimization for automated container terminal is the coordinated scheduling of automated quay crane (QC), automated guided vehicle (AGV), and automated stacking crane (ASC). In order to solve this problem, this paper proposed a new method to optimize the scheduling of ASC and AGV. In the automated container terminal, each container block is equipped with twin ASCs. At the same time, buffer zones are set at both ends of the container block to achieve the decoupling operation among ASC, AGV, and container truck. Considering the buffer capacity constraint and twin ASC operation interference, and introducing the design of handshake area, this paper developed a collaborative scheduling model of AGV and ASC in automatic terminal relay operation mode. This model is designed based on the genetic algorithm. The model aims to minimize the AGV waiting time and the ASC running time. The results indicated that the introduction of handshake area can effectively reduce the ASC operation interference by 10.56% on average. Also, it can be found that increasing buffer capacity can reduce the waiting time of AGV by about 4.25% on average, and the effect of relay operation is more obvious in large-scale operation. It was proved that buffer zone and handshake area can reduce task delay time and improve coordination between AGV and ASC.