Development of an open-source data-driven simulator for the unit-load multi-aisle automated storage and retrieval systems

Abstract

ABSTRACT Discrete-event simulations are widely used to research automated storage/retrieval systems (AS/RS). However, using commercial general-purpose simulators for this purpose has limitations such as lack of specific functionalities to capture the peculiarities of AS/RS, low model reusability, and lack of access to source code. Consequently, researchers have developed their own bespoke programs to meet their specific needs. These programs are specific to their research objective and are not meant for easy adoption, modification, or extension. As a result, there has been a lot of duplication of efforts across different studies. Motivated by this requirement for a customisable special-purpose simulator for AS/RS, this paper develops an open-source data-driven discrete-event simulator that allows its user to create and run simulation models of multi-aisle AS/RS without needing to write any code. The data-driven approach allows the quick creation of models of different multi-aisle AS/RS configurations and control policies. The simulator is developed in Python programming language, leveraging the functionalities of various libraries in its ecosystem. The simulator’s architecture is kept modular to facilitate its management, modification, and extension. The simulator’s features and ability to adapt to changes in input data are demonstrated through three example scenarios.