Reference
A. N. Tarău, B. De Schutter, and J.
Hellendoorn, "Hierarchical route control in DCV-based baggage handling
systems,"
International Journal of Services Operations and
Informatics, vol. 6, no. 1/2, pp. 5-29, Jan. 2011.
Abstract
State-of-the-art baggage handling systems transport the baggage at high speeds,
on a network of tracks, using destination coded vehicles (DCV). In order to
ensure the optimal routing of DCVs, in this paper we propose a hierarchical
control framework. In this framework switch controllers provide position
instructions for each switch in the network. The switch controllers are then
supervised by a so-called network controller that mainly takes care of flows of
DCVs. The routing control problem for the network controller is a nonlinear,
mixed integer optimization problem, with high computational requirements, which
makes it intractable in practice. Therefore, we present an alternative approach
for reducing the complexity of the computations by approximating the nonlinear
optimization problem and rewriting it as a mixed integer linear programming
(MILP) problem. The advantage is that for MILP problems solvers are available
that allow us to efficiently compute the global optimal solution. The solution
of the MILP problem is then used for computing optimal switch control actions.
For a benchmark case study we compare the hierarchical route control with
switch control approaches that have been developed previously. Results indicate
that the proposed hierarchical control offers a balanced trade-off between
optimality and computational efficiency.
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BibTeX
@article{TarDeS:10-055,
author = {Tar{\u{a}}u, Alina N. and De Schutter, Bart and Hellendoorn,
Johannes},
title = {Hierarchical Route Control in {DCV}-Based Baggage Handling
Systems},
journal = {International Journal of Services Operations and Informatics},
volume = {6},
number = {1/2},
pages = {5--29},
month = jan,
year = {2011}
}