A Cooperative Coevolutionary Algorithm for Optimizing Remarshaling Plan in an Automated Stacking Yard

In this paper, we propose optimizing a remarshaling plan in an automated stacking yard using a cooperative coevolutionary algorithm (CCEA). Remarshaling is the preparation task of rearranging the containers in such a way that the delay are minimized at the time of loading. A plan for remarshaling can be obtained by the following steps: first determining the target slots to which the individual containers are to be moved and then determining the order of movement of those containers. Where a given problem can be decomposed into some subproblems, CCEA efficiently searches subproblems for a solution. In our CCEA, the remarshaling problem is decomposed into two subproblems: one is the subproblem of determining the target slots and the other is that of determining the movement priority. Simulation experiments show that our CCEA derives a plan which is better in the efficiency of both loading and remarshaling compared to other methods which are not based on the idea of problem decomposition.