B.T. Skinner

Publications (2)1.49 Total impact

• Article: A job grouping approach for planning container transfers at automated seaport container terminals

  S. Yuan, B.T. Skinner, S. Huang, D.K. Liu, G. Dissanayake, H. Lau, D. Pagac
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  ABSTRACT: This paper proposes a practical job grouping approach, which aims to enhance the time related performance metrics of container transfers in the Patrick AutoStrad container terminal, located in Brisbane, Australia. It first formulates a mathematical model of the automated container transfers in a relatively complex environment. Apart from the consideration on collision avoidance of a fleet of large vehicles in a confined area, it also deals with many other difficult practical challenges such as the presence of multiple levels of container stacking and sequencing, variable container orientations, and vehicular dynamics that require finite acceleration and deceleration times. The proposed job grouping approach aims to improve the makespan of the schedule for yard jobs, while reducing straddle carrier waiting time by grouping jobs using a guiding function. The performance of the current sequential job allocation method and the proposed job grouping approach are evaluated and compared statistically using a pooled t-test for 30 randomly generated yard configurations. The experimental results show that the job grouping approach can effectively improve the schedule makespan and reduce the total straddle carrier waiting time.
  Advanced Engineering Informatics 01/2011; 25(3):413-426. · 1.49 Impact Factor
• Conference Proceeding: Mathematical modelling of container transfers for a fleet of autonomous straddle carriers

  S. Yuan, B.T. Skinner, S. Huang, D.K. Liu, G. Dissanayake, H. Lau, D. Pagac, T. Pratley
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  ABSTRACT: The main contribution of this paper is a mathematical model describing performance metrics for coordinating multiple mobile robots in a seaport container terminal. The scenario described here requires dealing with many difficult practical challenges such as the presence of multiple levels of container stacking and sequencing, variable container orientations, and vehicular dynamics that require finite acceleration and deceleration times. Furthermore, in contrast to the automatically guided vehicle planning problem in a manufacturing environment, the container carriers described here are free ranging. Although, the port structure imposes a set of “virtual” roadways along which the vehicles are allowed to travel, path planning is essential in preventing contention and collisions. A performance metric which minimises total yard-vehicle usage, while producing robust traffic plans by encouraging both early starting and finishing of jobs is presented for different vehicle fleet sizes and job allocation scenarios.
  Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2010 IEEE International Conference on; 06/2010