A Modified Brain Storm Optimization Algorithm for Solving Scheduling of Double-End Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems

Abstract

As a product of modern development, logistics plays a significant role in economic growth with its advantages of integrated management, unified operations, and speed. With the rapid advancement of technology and economy, traditional manual storage and retrieval methods can no longer meet industry demands. Achieving efficient storage and retrieval of goods on densely packed, symmetrically shaped logistics shelves has become a critical issue that needs urgent resolution. The brain storm optimization (BSO) algorithm, introduced in 2010, has found extensive applications across various fields. This paper presents a modified BSO algorithm (MBSO) aimed at addressing the scheduling challenges of double-end automated storage and retrieval systems (DE-AS/RSs). Traditional AS/RSs suffer from slow scheduling efficiency and the current heuristic algorithms exhibit low accuracy. To overcome these limitations, we propose a new scheduling strategy for the stacker to select I/O stations in DE-AS/RSs. The MBSO incorporates two key enhancements to the basic BSO algorithm. First, it employs an objective space clustering method in place of the standard k-means clustering to achieve more accurate solutions for AS/RS scheduling problems. Second, it utilizes a mutation operation based on a greedy strategy and an improved crossover operation for updating individuals. Extensive comparisons were made between the well-known heuristic algorithms NIGA and BSO in several specific enterprise warehouse scenarios. The experimental results show that the MBSO has significant accuracy, optimization speed, and robustness in solving scheduling of AS/RSs.