(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2010-10)
Schuster, Martin; Bormann, Richard; Steidl, Daniela; Reynolds-Haertle, Saul; Stilman, Mike
We present a novel algorithm that solves the distributor's pallet packing problem. In contrast to existing
algorithms, our method optimizes stack stability in addition
to stack volume. Furthermore, our algorithm explicitly handles
cases where the construction of homogeneous layers of packages
with equal height is impossible due to differences in package
heights and quantities. The algorithm is a nested beam search
that separately optimizes local and global evaluation criteria.
We show successful results on both real world and synthetic
data sets, compare our performance to an existing algorithm
and demonstrate experimental applications in simulation and
on a real palletizing robot.