A Novel Multi-Warehouse Mobile Robot Hierarchical Scheduling Strategy Based on Industrial Cyber-Physical System

Abstract

Using Industrial Cyber-Physical System (ICPS) to model industrial and manufacturing systems can reasonably allocate computing resources and improve overall work efficiency. This paper is mainly devoted to the modeling and scheduling strategy of the multiple warehouse mobile robot (multi-WMR) system, especially the topology map modeling, multi-robot path planning, and the overall system deployment architecture. First, given the limited path resources and congestion problems, an evaluation index based on path arc time loss is proposed and applied to the path network modeling. Second, an improved heuristic path planning algorithm is deployed to each mobile robot, including two evaluation indicators: time loss and destination distance. Innovative hierarchical scheduling strategies-map state evaluation, collision avoidance, and path planning, are deployed in different layers of ICPS, which significantly improves computational efficiency. Finally, numerical simulation experiments based on the self-developed software platform are executed and further verified effectiveness.