A hybrid model for the control and the analysis of complex automated warehouse systems

Author

Basile, Francesco ; Chiacchio, Pasquale ; Coppola, Jolanda

Author_Institution

Dip. Ing. Elettron. e Ing. Inf., Univ. di Salerno, Salerno, Italy

fYear

2011

fDate

5-9 Sept. 2011

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

8

Abstract

An automated warehouse system has two main components: an automated storage and retrieval subsystem consisting of a number of aisles, each one served by a crane, and a picking area which is formed by bays where stock units coming from the aisles are partially emptied by human operators. These two components are connected via an interface area consisting of carousels, conveyors and buffers. This area is usually modeled as a discrete event system, while the overall system performance depends also on continuous time phenomena. A hybrid model focusing on the interface area is proposed in this paper to improve the control and the analysis of complex automated warehouse systems. A real case study is considered to show the effectiveness of the approach.

Keywords

continuous time systems; conveyors; cranes; discrete event systems; storage automation; warehouse automation; automated retrieval subsystem; automated storage subsystem; automated warehouse system; buffers; carousels; continuous time phenomena; conveyors; crane; discrete event system; human operators; hybrid model; interface area; picking area; stock units; Color; Cranes; Mathematical model; Optimization; Petri nets; Synchronization; Vectors;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Emerging Technologies & Factory Automation (ETFA), 2011 IEEE 16th Conference on

Conference_Location

Toulouse

ISSN

1946-0740

Print_ISBN

978-1-4577-0017-0

Electronic_ISBN

1946-0740

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ETFA.2011.6059041

Filename

6059041