Task Assignment Problem of Robots in a Smart Warehouse Environment

Abstract

The task assignment problem of robots in a smart warehouse environment (TARSWE) based on cargo-to-person is investigated. Firstly, the sites of warehouse robots and the order picking tasks are given and the task assignment problem for picking one order is formulated into a mathematical model to minimize the total operation cost. Then a heuristic algorithm is designed to solve the task assignment problem for picking multiple orders. Finally, simulations are done by using the orders data of online bookstore A. The results show that using the heuristic algorithm of this paper to assign robots, the cost was reduced by 2% and it can effectively avoid far route and unbalanced workload of robots. The feasibility and validity of the model and algorithm are verified. The model and algorithm in this paper provide a theoretical basis to solve the TARSWE.