Energy-efficient dispatching solution in an automated air cargo terminal

Energy-efficient dispatching of rail-guided vehicles (RGVs) is demanded in an automated air cargo terminal. The problem aims to minimize total energy cost of operating RGVs for transporting the cargos subject to real time constraints. This work focuses on solving an optimal dispatching problem with a single RGV having multiple capacity. A mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model is developed for the problem, which takes account of various constraints, including loading, deadlock avoidance, precedence, time window and capacity constraints. Difficulties of identifying and representing the constraints are revealed. Computational studies performed on randomly generated instances are used to validate the model and demonstrate challenges of solving the problem to a large scale.