Yusong Pang

A Novel Embedded Conductive Detection System for Intelligent Conveyor Belt Monitoring

Continuous transport systems such as belt conveyor systems are playing an important role nowadays in industrial fields of logistics, transportation, storage, etc. Condition monitoring has been an established tool and widely applied to transportation management systems. However intelligent monitoring of belt conveyor systems is still in an early stage. This paper introduces an embedded conductive detection (ECD) technology that uses a magnet matrix embedded into the conveyor belt carcass and outside sensors to detect and monitor most of the conveyor belt parameters simultaneously. As a novel nondestructive test (NDT) technology, it overcomes drawbacks of traditional conveyor belt monitoring technologies and it has characteristics of absolutely maintenance free, long lifetime, non-contact monitoring and passive measurement. In this paper, applications of the main principle of the ECD technology have also been extended to the field of automatic guided vehicles (AGVs)

Improving energy efficiency in material transport systems by fuzzy speed control

Belt conveyors are widely applied for industrial material transport and logistics distribution. In general, belt conveyors run at nominal belt speed. The belt can be only partly filled when received material flow is smaller than the nominal conveying capacity. Researches have shown that conveyor speed control always leads to the reduction of the required electrical drive power. Current applications mainly focus on developing control models and implementing controllers for continuous speed adjustment. However, for practical reasons discrete control is preferred. This paper presents a fuzzy control method to improve the energy efficiency in material transport. This method applies fuzzy logic to represent the alteration of material flow scenarios. Fuzzy control algorithm provides optimal adjustment of belt speed to avoid potential material spillage and overload caused by short-term peaks of material loading rate. The improvement of energy efficiency is estimated by both simulation and practical measurement.

Large-scale conveyor belt system maintenance decision-making by using fuzzy causal modeling

Conveyor belt systems have been significantly developed for decades and are playing a critical role in todays large-scale continuous transport systems. Traditional conveyor belt monitoring focuses on catastrophic failure. Failure alarms and maintenance decisions are submitted separately without revealing relationships of monitored events. Causal modeling such like Bayesian methodology provides intuitive and mathematically sound tools to understand complex relations between uncertain variables and failure causes. However to derive inference knowledge for validating causal modeling is difficult. This paper introduces a causal modeling methodology based on Bayesian inference to diagnose failure situation and decide relative maintenance operations for large-scale conveyor belt systems. Fuzzy logic is applied to estimate the likelihood density function which is usually hard to be obtained for causal inferences. This methodology is applied as a maintenance decision-making process in intelligent conveyor belt monitoring system. An application of indicating the main failure cause and suggesting maintenance operation for conveyor belt emergency braking system is presented.

Bipolar magnetic positioning system for automated guided vehicles

This paper presents the simulation and prototype of a bipolar magnet positioning system for automated guided vehicles (AGV). The positioning system consists on small cylindrical magnets placed in the floor making the path for the AGV. Magnetic sensors onboard of the AGV receive binary codes from the designed magnet array to recognize its position and make decisions on what path to follow in an intersection. Furthermore, the possibility of assembling the bipolar magnetic positioning system for AGVs with low price components, and the capabilities of such a technology by implementing it on real mini-AGVs in a laboratory environment is presented.

Collaborative framework of an intelligent agent system for efficient logistics transport planning

Abstract In modern logistics chain, planning system which been applied for supporting daily operations, is becoming more information-intensive and technologically-dependent. Due to the growing operational complexities, the planning system is not only required to focus on ensuring the feasibility of daily plan, but also be capable of manipulating conflict of interest (COI) by exploiting efficient negotiation. This paper addresses a challenge of hinterland transport planning caused by limited information sharing, lack of collaboration and COI. We design collaboration and decision-making mechanisms for the implementation of autonomous control by means of multi agent technology and hybrid heuristics. It aims at providing quality plan to achieve high level of performance and robustness in hinterland logistics. From a system point of view, a service oriented architecture is proposed to integrate agent paradigm with a web-based planning system. From an operational point of view, special attentions are paid on establishing multi-dimensional collaborations between different stakeholders under the support of game theoretic approach. Specifically, we define how planning activities are executed, which level of collaborations are incorporated and how benefits are achieved with a global point of view. Due to the NP-hard nature of the addressed problem, an integrated NGSA-II and simulated annealing algorithm is implemented for assisting decision making. The parameters associated with the algorithm are tuned based on the Taguchi method. Case and comparative study will be presented to validate the appropriateness and performance of the approach.

The application of RFID technology in large-scale dry bulk material transport system monitoring

The transport of dry bulk material is considered to be energy costly and environment impactive in industry production. Belt conveyors are widely used as an efficient mode in continuous material transport. To ensure healthy operation and to lessen environment impact, such material transport systems need to be monitored. A belt conveyor system may contain thousands of idler rolls. Any failure of the rolls will cause extra energy consumption and environmental pollutions such as dust, noise and material spillage. The large number idler rolls are the most difficult to be monitored due to the large-scale of the system. Traditionally, idler rolls are inspected individually and manually. This paper presents the research of wireless monitoring for group idler rolls. RFID technology is employed to build sensor nodes to transfer monitoring data via a node to node wireless communication network. A concept of self-power generation idler provides the energy harvest solution for the sensor nodes. The implementation of the wireless monitoring shows that RFID technology is a sound solution to automate the monitoring of large number distributed components in the wide area of material transport systems.

Integrate multi-agent planning in hinterland transport

An integrated platform for efficient hinterland transport planning.A novel formulation of planning problem with a bi-level leader-follower model.Information sharing is achieved using a mediator-based multi agent system.Feasibility and effectiveness are validated through case study. This paper addresses the planning issue in hinterland barge transport domain, characterized by limited information sharing, lack of cooperation and conflict of interest among different parties (terminal and barge party). The planning problem is formulated as a novel Stackelberg game to model a leader-followers bi-level optimization problem. A hybrid algorithm is developed that concerns different objectives (vessel turn around and terminal berthing capacity) simultaneously while fulling pre-defined operational constraints. The presented algorithm is outlined in a hierarchical way and embedded into dedicated agents as decision-making kernel. We describe the architecture and the implementation of the proposed mediator-based multi agent system and overall coupling framework include agent identification, coordination and decision making. A case study evaluates the performance of our approach in terms of global optimality compared with other related approach.

Determination of Acceleration for Belt Conveyor Speed Control in Transient Operation

Speed control has been found a feasible mean to reduce the energy consumption of belt conveyors. However, the current research has not taken the determination of the acceleration in transient operation into account sufficiently. With respect to the belt tension rating, demanded safety factor and the ratio between belt tension before and after drive pulley, this paper presents an approach to estimate the acceleration time. Case with specific horizontal belt conveyor is studied. The simulations with finite element model are carried out to analyze the belt dynamic behaviors in transient operation. Further simulations are carried out to get the optimum acceleration time.

An intelligent agent-based information integrated platform for hinterland container transport

Hinterland transport plays a dominant role in todays logistics chain. However, the present way of its transport planning is far from optimal. Information inaccessibility and old-fashioned communication are key issues that prevent planning reaching optimal. In addition, none contractual relationship between different stakeholders (e.g. terminal operators and barge operators) makes central planning even more difficult. This paper describes the development of an agent-based information integrated platform for hinterland waterway barge transport planning. The objective is to facilitate data exchange and establish an optimal plan for involved parties. The system can be described as a decision support and communication system in which soft agents handle communication tasks and exchange desired information among different stakeholders. The agents interact via a web interface with a so called hinterland transportation planning system where agent behaviour is coordinated, the level of information exchange is controlled and plan is created and stored. A prototype of the agent-based intelligent system has been developed which demonstrated the successful agent functioning and coordination between different agents in a web-based environment.

Fuzzy Controlled Energy Saving Solution for Large-Scale Belt Conveying Systems

Belt conveyors generally run at designed nominal speed. When material loading rate is smaller than the nominal conveying capacity the belt is under the situation of being partially filled. It provides the potential of reducing energy consumption by means of adjusting the speed of the belt. For practical reasons discrete control is preferred to adjust the belt speed. This paper presents a fuzzy control method to improve the energy efficiency of large-scale belt conveying systems. Fuzzy logic is applied to represent the change of material loading rate. A fuzzy control algorithm is developed to optimize the adjustment of belt speed to avoid potential material spillage and material overload caused by the short-term material loading peaks. Energy savingsareestimated by computer simulation. Simulation model and outputare verified by practical measurement.