Dynamic Scheduling of Crane by Embedding Deep Reinforcement Learning into a Digital Twin Framework

• Published in: Information (Basel) Vol. 13; no. 6; p. 286
• Main Authors: Xu, Zhenyu, Chang, Daofang, Sun, Miaomiao, Luo, Tian
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01.06.2022
• Subjects: Algorithms; Artificial intelligence; Automation; crane; Cranes; Cranes & hoists; Decision making; Deep learning; deep reinforcement learning; digital twin; Digital twins; dynamic scheduling; Embedding; Internet of Things; Job shops; Machine learning; Manufacturing; Markov processes; Numerical analysis; Optimization; Scheduling; Steel production; Three dimensional models; Transportation; Workshops
• DOI: 10.3390/info13060286
• ISSN: 2078-2489

This study proposes a digital twin (DT) application framework that integrates deep reinforcement learning (DRL) algorithms for the dynamic scheduling of crane transportation in workshops. DT is used to construct the connection between the workshop service system, logical simulation environment, 3D visualization model and physical workshop, and DRL is used to support the core decision in scheduling. First, the dynamic scheduling problem of crane transportation is constructed as a Markov decision process (MDP), and the corresponding double deep Q-network (DDQN) is designed to interact with the logic simulation environment to complete the offline training of the algorithm. Second, the trained DDQN is embedded into the DT framework, and then connected with the physical workshop and the workshop service system to realize online dynamic crane scheduling based on the real-time states of the workshop. Finally, case studies of crane scheduling under dynamic job arrival and equipment failure scenarios are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework. The numerical analysis shows that the proposed method is superior to the traditional dynamic scheduling method, and it is also suitable for large-scale problems.