3D dynamic heterogeneous robotic palletization problem

Wenbin Zhu, Ying Fu and You Zhou

European Journal of Operational Research, 2024, vol. 316, issue 2, 584-596

Abstract: This paper proposes a practical robotic packing system to automate packing heterogeneous carton boxes into pallets, which is still handled manually in many distribution centers. The main challenge is to solve a 3D dynamic heterogeneous robotic palletization (DHRP) problem. Aside from the NP-completeness, there are two additional complexities in DHRP. First, the packing plan must be executable by a robotic arm without collision. Second, the packing decision must be made in real time with partial information. Tractable models are proposed to avoid collision for a common type of robotic arm and ensure the stability of the packing layout. An efficient algorithm is proposed to compute collision-free trajectories of the robotic arm during packing operations, which is embedded into a tree search algorithm to solve the semi-online counterpart of DHRP. Our semi-online algorithm is extended to solve the online version by adopting a Monte Carlo simulation strategy. A comprehensive set of test cases is generated based on realistic data to measure the performance of our algorithm. Numerical experiments show that our algorithm can produce feasible packing decisions in a few seconds for each incoming box on a modest personal computer, which is adequate for many practical setups. To help practitioners select the best setup for their application, numerical experiments are also conducted to analyze the impact of a few key design parameters in a robotic packing system on packing performance.

Keywords: Packing; Online decision; Robotic palletization; Heterogeneous boxes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ejores:v:316:y:2024:i:2:p:584-596

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2024.02.007

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