Multistep optimal scheduling of Automated Guided Vehicles in a semiconductor fabrication

This paper presents a method to solve the optimal scheduling problem of Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs). The problem is formulated into an integer programming problem by focusing a summation of idling time when an AGV does not operate any dispatching commands of transportation. However, there remains undecided constants exist in some constraints. Therefore, we propose a multistep algorithm to solve the problem with a relaxation to multiple steps. A numerical simulation is also presented here.