Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T03:15:09.224Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Routing Driverless Transport Vehicles in Car Assembly with Answer Set Programming

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 August 2018

MARTIN GEBSER
Affiliation:
University of Potsdam, Germany (e-mail: [email protected])
PHILIPP OBERMEIER
Affiliation:
University of Potsdam, Germany (e-mail: [email protected])
TORSTEN SCHAUB
Affiliation:
University of Potsdam, Germany (e-mail: [email protected])
MICHEL RATSCH-HEITMANN
Affiliation:
Mercedes-Benz Ludwigsfelde GmbH, Germany
MARIO RUNGE
Affiliation:
Mercedes-Benz Ludwigsfelde GmbH, Germany
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Automated storage and retrieval systems are principal components of modern production and warehouse facilities. In particular, automated guided vehicles nowadays substitute human-operated pallet trucks in transporting production materials between storage locations and assembly stations. While low-level control systems take care of navigating such driverless vehicles along programmed routes and avoid collisions even under unforeseen circumstances, in the common case of multiple vehicles sharing the same operation area, the problem remains how to set up routes such that a collection of transport tasks is accomplished most effectively. We address this prevalent problem in the context of car assembly at Mercedes-Benz Ludwigsfelde GmbH, a large-scale producer of commercial vehicles, where routes for automated guided vehicles used in the production process have traditionally been hand-coded by human engineers. Such ad-hoc methods may suffice as long as a running production process remains in place, while any change in the factory layout or production targets necessitates tedious manual reconfiguration, not to mention the missing portability between different production plants. Unlike this, we propose a declarative approach based on Answer Set Programming to optimize the routes taken by automated guided vehicles for accomplishing transport tasks. The advantages include a transparent and executable problem formalization, provable optimality of routes relative to objective criteria, as well as elaboration tolerance towards particular factory layouts and production targets. Moreover, we demonstrate that our approach is efficient enough to deal with the transport tasks evolving in realistic production processes at the car factory of Mercedes-Benz Ludwigsfelde GmbH.

Type
Original Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

References

Banbara, M., Kaufmann, B., Ostrowski, M., and Schaub, T. 2017. Clingcon: The next generation. Theory and Practice of Logic Programming 17, 4, 408461.Google Scholar
Calimeri, F., Faber, W., Gebser, M., Ianni, G., Kaminski, R., Krennwallner, T., Leone, N., Ricca, F., and Schaub, T. 2012. ASP-Core-2: Input language format.Google Scholar
Erdem, E., Kisa, D., Öztok, U., and Schüller, P. 2013. A general formal framework for pathfinding problems with multiple agents. In Proceedings of AAAI'13. AAAI Press, 290296.Google Scholar
Fisher, M. 2008. Temporal representation and reasoning. In Handbook of Knowledge Representation. Elsevier Science, 513550.Google Scholar
Fox, M. and Long, D. 2003. PDDL2.1: An extension to PDDL for expressing temporal planning domains. Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research 20, 61124.Google Scholar
Gebser, M., Janhunen, T., and Rintanen, J. Declarative encodings of acyclicity properties. Journal of Logic and Computation, in press.Google Scholar
Gebser, M., Kaminski, R., Kaufmann, B., Lindauer, M., Ostrowski, M., Romero, J., Schaub, T., and Thiele, S. 2015. Potassco User Guide. University of Potsdam.Google Scholar
Gebser, M., Kaminski, R., Kaufmann, B., and Schaub, T. 2012. Answer Set Solving in Practice. Morgan and Claypool Publishers.Google Scholar
Lifschitz, V. 1999. Answer set planning. In Proceedings of ICLP'99. MIT Press, 2337.Google Scholar
Neubauer, K., Wanko, P., Schaub, T., and Haubelt, C. 2017. Enhancing symbolic system synthesis through ASPmT with partial assignment evaluation. In Proceedings of DATE'17. IEEE Press, 306309.Google Scholar
Nguyen, V., Obermeier, P., Son, T., Schaub, T., and Yeoh, W. 2017. Generalized target assignment and path finding using answer set programming. In Proceedings of IJCAI'17. IJCAI/AAAI Press, 12161223.Google Scholar
Son, T., Baral, C., and Tuan, L. 2004. Adding time and intervals to procedural and hierarchical control specifications. In Proceedings of AAAI'04. AAAI Press, 9297.Google Scholar
Zhou, N., Barták, R., and Dovier, A. 2015. Planning as tabled logic programming. Theory and Practice of Logic Programming 15, 4–5, 543558.Google Scholar