Dynamic rolling horizon scheduling of waterborne AGVs for inter terminal transport

The demand for transport between terminals within port areas, known as inter terminal transport (ITT), is increasing. This paper proposes a dynamic rolling horizon scheduling strategy for ITT using waterborne Autonomous Guided Vessels (waterborne AGVs). The strategy is dynamic in that it can handle the dynamically arriving ITT requests and...

The development modes of inland ports: Theoretical models and the Chinese cases

This paper examines the development modes of inland ports based on the economic models and the Chinese empirical cases. After reviewing the recent policies in China, four modes, i.e., the government-driven mode, the seaport-driven, the market-driven mode and the corridor-effect mode, are established to describe the development of Chinese...

Cooperative multi-vessel systems in urban waterway networks

Urban waterways have great potential in cargo transport to relieve the congestion in the overloaded road networks. This paper explores the potential of applying cooperative multi-vessel systems (CMVSs) to improve the safety and efficiency of transport in urban waterway networks. A framework consisting of vessel train formation (VTF) and...

Cooperative distributed predictive control for collision-free vehicle platoons

The rapidly developing computing and communication technologies improve the autonomy of individual vehicles on the one hand and facilitate the coordination among vehicles on the other. In the context of dynamic speed management, this study considers a platoon of intelligent vehicles that are required to maintain desired inter-vehicle spaces and...

Adaptive predictive path following control based on least squares support vector machines for underactuated autonomous vessels

Since vessel dynamics could vary during maneuvering because of load changes, speed changing, environmental disturbances, aging of mechanism, etc., the performance of model-based path following control may be degraded if the controller uses the same motion model all the time. This article proposes an adaptive path following control method...

Predictive path following with arrival time awareness for waterborne AGVs

Large ports are seeking innovative logistical ways to improve their competitiveness world-wide. This article proposes waterborne AGVs, inspired by conventional automated guided vehicles and autonomous surface vessels, for transport over water. A predictive path following with arrival time awareness controller is proposed for such waterborne AGVs...