A Heuristic Method for Route Programming in Puzzle-Based Energy Storage Systems

Recently, many energy storage-related enterprises have been facing difficulties brought out by the limitation of land and the increase in loan cost. As a promising approach to improving space utilization rate, puzzle-based energy storage systems (PBESSs) are drawing more attention from logistics researchers. In previous research about PBESS, concentration has been paid to single target item problems. However, there are no consensus algorithms to solve load retrievals route programming in PBESSs with multiple target items. In this paper, a heuristic algorithm is proposed to solve load retrieval route programming in PBESSs with multiple target items, multiple escorts, and multiple (Inputs Outputs) IOs. This paper defines new concepts about the proposed algorithm, including target IOs, target position of escorts, number of escorts required, et al. Then, the decision procedures are designed according to these concepts. Based on the Markov decision process, the proposed algorithm makes the decision of the next action by analyzing the current status, until all the target items arrive at the IOs. The case study results have shown the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed heuristic algorithm.