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Math Forum / Mathematics / Operations Research / February 2008Vehicle Packing Algorithms - Best Practices
We're looking for a vehicle packing/loading algorithm for an analytical study. It's a military operation so the geometries/weights of the equipment are not standardized to a small set of same dimension sets like standardized containers. I googled the problem and came up with some but not much commercial software. A google scholar search of course gave me plenty of algorithm hits but I can not tell which have migrated to real implementation. I'm on OR guy, but this problem is new to me in an applied sense. We can write code and/or hook up data sets to an optimization or heuristic engine if that's what works.. BTW, the problem looks to be 2D with a center of mass constraint desirable if we can formulate it in. And the problem in reality is RO- RO,(Roll On, Roll Off) so we'd like to keep the stuff facing back to front. Because it is an analytical study, we do have leeway on approximating physical reality, but we'd like to get as close as possible to keeping things from falling over. Any feedback on ways to tackle this real problem would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Steve >We're looking for a vehicle packing/loading algorithm for an >analytical study. It's a military operation so the geometries/weights >of the equipment are not standardized to a small set of same dimension >sets like standardized containers. I googled the problem and came up >with some but not much commercial software. I am not sure what you are looking for?.. .Algorithm?... Commercial sofware?... Something like this http://www.softtruck.com/faq's.htm http://www.topseng.com/ http://www3.sympatico.ca/harry.clark/truck.htm and tons of other... If algorithms, see, for example, David Pissinger's page http://www.diku.dk/~pisinger/publications/sort_date.html If the above is not what you are looking for, then why?.. A.L. > >We're looking for a vehicle packing/loading algorithm for an > >analytical study. It's a military operation so the geometries/weights [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > > A.L. A.L. Thanks much for the info. It's a great start. The packing problem is not the fundamental one for the study at hand So we don't want to take on too much of a headache. The main problem is a vehicle routing sim for military operations and we have to pack up transport vehicles with loads in a preprocessing step. We may do dozens of sims. So I'd want to automate that by calling a loading routine of some kind that services a load list data base prior to sim execution. If you have any other ideas, I'd appreciate them. SteveM P.S. I assiduously checked google and google scholar first to preclude you from hurling those searing lightening bolts of yours my way. I've heard that those scars can last forever :) >>We're looking for a vehicle packing/loading algorithm for an >>analytical study. It's a military operation so the geometries/weights [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > > and tons of other... 'Tons' is a bit much. We are aware of about 35, but that number includes a lot of rather primitive attempts (to put it mildly). > If algorithms, see, for example, David Pissinger's page > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > A.L. Steve, if you are looking for an algorithm/optimizer that takes limits on Center of Gravity into account during the optimization, your choice is very limited. None of the above systems (Softtruck, Maxload, Truckfill) does this to my knowledge. Cube-IQ (our own software, www.magiclogic.com) does, and maybe also LoadDesigner (www.loaddesigner.com) and Puzzle (http://www.iml.fraunhofer.de/1470.html). Most of the algorithms published in the scientific literature have not been taken to the point where they are of truly practical use, but do check what has been published by the people at the University of Swansea (see www.goweralg.co.uk). The Fraunhofer Institute's Puzzle is another exception. RJ >>>We're looking for a vehicle packing/loading algorithm for an >>>analytical study. It's a military operation so the geometries/weights [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] >'Tons' is a bit much. We are aware of about 35, but that number includes a >lot of rather primitive attempts (to put it mildly). In this area, this is my definition of a "ton". That number includes pretty sophisticated ones (to put it mildly) A.L. >>>>We're looking for a vehicle packing/loading algorithm for an >>>>analytical study. It's a military operation so the geometries/weights [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > > A.L. Ok! What does make true counting a bit more complex is that several 'systems' out there use the same algorithm(s). RJ |
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