Operations Research Proceedings 2004

Abstract

We present an algorithm for the problem of routing Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) in an automated logistic system. The algorithm avoids collisions, deadlocks and livelocks already at the time of route computation (conflict-free routing). After a preprocessing step the real-time computation for each request consists of the determination of a shortest path with time-windows and a following readjustment of these time-windows. Both is done in polynomial-time. Using goal-oriented search we get computation times which are appropriate for real-time routing. Additionally, in comparison to a static routing approach, used in Container Terminal Altenwerder (CTA) at Hamburg Harbour, our algorithm had an explicit advantage.