Robotic cell cyclic scheduling considering cell layout

Abstract

This paper studies a robotic cell cyclic scheduling problem where the transportation between machines is executed by a robot. The objective is to maximize the throughput and minimize the total robot travel distance simultaneously. The two objectives are both affected not only by the robot schedule, but also by the cell layout because the distance between any pair of machines varies with different cell layouts. A bi-objective mixed integer programming (MIP) model is developed to optimize the above two objectives by simultaneously optimizing cell layout and its corresponding robot schedule. A case study demonstrates the efficiency of the proposed approach.