STACK HANDLING OPERATION METHOD, SYSTEM, AND COMPUTER PROGRAM

• US 20140074541A1
• Filed: 08/29/2013
• Published: 03/13/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/11/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Hama, Toshiyuki, Yanagisawa, Hiroki, Yoshizumi, Takayuki
• Granted Patent: US 9,495,653 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/7.25
• CPC Class Codes: B66C 1/00 Load-engaging elements or devices attached to lifting or lowering gear of cranes or adapted for connection therewith for transmitting lifting forces to articles or groups of articles fastening to cables or ropes F16G11/00
• CPC Class Codes: B66C 23/58 arranged to carry out a desired sequence of operations automatically, e.g. hoisting followed by luffing and slewing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063 Operations research, analysis or management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06315 Needs-based resource requirements planning or analysis

Abstract

A method for searching transition routes from an initial state of a plurality of stackable items to a target state by a computer at predetermined conditions includes connecting between transitionable states at an edge by a single handling operation transitioning from the initial state to the target state, to generate a state space graph; evaluating a lower bound of handling operation cost from a certain state to the target state, based on both the stacking sequence of the plurality of items in the certain state and the stacking sequence of the plurality of items in the target state; and searching a route from the initial state to the target state where the handling operation cost is minimal on the state space graph using a heuristic search algorithm based on the lower bound.

Claims

1-19. -19. (canceled)

20. A computer that searches a transition route from the initial state of the plurality of stackable items to the target state, at predetermined conditions, comprising:

means for connecting between transitionable states at an edge by a single operation transitioning from the initial state to the target state, to generate a state space graph;

means for calculating the lower bound of the handling operation cost from a certain state to the target state, based on the stacking sequence of the plurality of items in the certain state and the stacking sequence of the plurality of items in the target state; and

means for searching a route from the initial state to the target state where the handling operation cost is minimal on the state space graph using a heuristic search algorithm based on the lower bound.