Research On Optimization Of Multiple Resources Configuration Scheme In The Automated Container Terminal Based On Multi-Agent

Since the 21st century,trade between countries has become more frequent,which has led to the rapid development of the international shipping market and the continuous improvement of the world’s container transportation network.Container terminals play a very important role in the development of shipping industry,especially automated terminals that use automated facilities,equipments and intelligent information technology,can also significantly improve the loading and unloading efficiency of the terminal.Now more and more countries are trying to build new automated container terminals or upgrade exiting traditional container terminals automatically.The automated container terminal is equipped with various resources.Among them,facility and equipment resources,such as quay cranes,horizontal transportation equipments,and automated gantry cranes play a key role in the operation of the terminal.How to properly allocate facility and equipment resources and so further improve the operation efficiency of the terminal is currently a problem studied by many scholars.Because the operation of automated container terminals is complicated and uncertain,so the automated container terminal system is a kind of complex system.However,as a product of the information age,the continuous development of Agent technology has laid the foundation in certain degree for solving the related problems of such complex systems.Agent has the characteristics of autonomy,responsiveness and behavior rationality,in addition,the Multi-Agent System that composed of multiple Agents has good flexibility and organization.Therefore,making use of the Agent technology has strong applicability for building an automated container terminal simulation system and researching the facility and equipment configuration problem of automated container terminals.This article first clarifies the research background and significance,at the same time,sorts out and summarizes the domestic and international research status in related fields,identifies the research content and research technical route of this article,meanwhile introduces relevant theoretical knowledge.Secondly,in view of the research problems in this paper,considering the port time of ships and the cost of loading and unloading operations of terminal facilities and equipments,an evaluation model of multi-resource configuration for the automated terminal is established.Thirdly,combined with Multi-Agent modeling technology,an automated container terminal simulation system based on Multi-Agent is built to establish a solution basis for the optimized configuration scheme.Moreover,the operation logic of the simulation system,the controls and custom algorithms in the system,the function definition and code design of nine types of Agents,and the design of six types of modeling processes were introduced.Finally,this article takes Xiamen Ocean Gate automated container terminal as the research object,initializes the simulation system and sets parameters according to the actual situation of the terminal,and then realizes the running of the simulation system of Xiamen Ocean Gate automated container terminal.After conducting simulation experiments on different configuration schemes,the objective function value of the multi-resource configuration evaluation model and the reasonable configuration scheme are solved,and the simulation results are analyzed.The simulation results show that when the unloading and loading volume are 300TEU in Xiamen Ocean Gate automated container terminal,the new configuration scheme can save 16.0%of the facilities and equipments operating cost and save 18.1%of the ship’s port time compared to the original configuration scheme.The new configuration scheme obtains a balance between operating costs and operating efficiency of the terminal,which can provide a reference for terminal operators.In addition,the automated container terminal simulation system based on Multi-Agent built in this paper can also be used for other research in the terminal field,which has certain significance for the optimization of the operation in automated container terminals.