Dispatching Electric AGVs in Automated Container Terminals with Long Travelling Distance

Bian, Z.; Yang, Y.; Mi, W., and Mi, C., 2015. Dispatching electric AGVs in automated container terminals with long travel distance. Electric AGV's are a promising horizontal transporter for automated container terminals (ACT), however, its application in ACTs has been held back since the performance of batteries was unsatisfactory. Following the development of battery technology in recent years, the major obstacle impeding the application of AGVs has turned to the management defects, especially in automated container terminals with long travelling distance. In light of this, an event-driven approach for dispatching electric AGVs in ACT's is proposed in this paper. An event-driven assignment model considering battery capacity is raised, in which empty AGVs are always deemed as available for assignment. Moreover, the performance of algorithms for assignment is compared by numerical experiments.