Performance analysis of autonomous vehicle storage and retrieval systems depending on storage management policies

This paper deals with the influence of storage management policies on the performance of autonomous vehicle storage and retrieval systems (AVS/RS). Strategies like cross storage, access frequency based strategies, as well as path optimized and first in first out strategies were analyzed by using an AutoMod™ based simulation model. For each strategy the vehicle selection strategy was varied to identify existing interactions between the two sets of strategies. The physical components were not changed throughout the simulation study, except for the amount of used vehicles. The simulation results were analyzed with the aim of obtaining universally valid statements on the system behavior. The conclusion is that immense performance effects can be achieved by intelligent control of AVS/RS without changing the physical configuration. The increase in performance can be generated by several individual effects. Therefore, the design of each autonomous vehicle storage and retrieval system needs a by-case examination.