An algorithm for optimal cyclic scheduling in a robotic cell with flexible processing times

This paper describes an exact algorithm for the optimal cyclic scheduling in a robotic cell with flexible processing times and a material handling robot. The problem is formulated with the prohibited intervals of the cycle time based on the capacity constraints of the machines and the robot. After the analysis of the developed mathematic model, the problem is transformed to enumerate the non-prohibited intervals for the cycle time. An efficient branch and bound algorithm is proposed to complete this enumeration procedure. Computational results on randomly generated test instances indicate that the algorithm is effective.