We propose a Deep Reinforcement Learning (Deep RL) algorithm for solving the online 3D bin packing problem for an arbitrary number of bins and any bin size. The focus is on producing decisions that can be physically implemented by a robotic loading arm, a laboratory prototype used for testing the concept. The problem considered in this paper is novel in two ways. First, unlike the traditional 3D bin packing problem, we assume that the entire set of objects to be packed is not known a priori. Instead, a fixed number of upcoming objects is visible to the loading system, and they must be loaded in the order of arrival. Second, the goal is not to move objects from one point to another via a feasible path, but to find a location and orientation for each object that maximises the overall packing efficiency of the bin(s). Finally, the learnt model is designed to work with problem instances of arbitrary size without retraining. Simulation results show that the RL-based method outperforms state-of-the-art online bin packing heuristics in terms of empirical competitive ratio and volume efficiency.
GOPT: Generalizable Online 3D Bin Packing via Transformer-based Deep Reinforcement Learning
State Key Laboratory of Intelligent Manufacturing Equipment and Technology, School of Mechanical Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology（华中科技大学机械科学与工程学院智能制造装备与技术国家重点实验室）；BOSCH Corporate Research, China（博世中国研究中心）；State Key Laboratory of High-end Heavy-load Robots, Midea Group（美的集团高端重载机器人国家重点实验室）；Midea Corporate Research Center（美的集团企业研究中心）
The 3D Bin Packing Problem (3D-BPP) is one of the most demanded yet challenging problems in industry, where an agent must pack variable size items delivered in sequence into a finite bin with the aim to maximize the space utilization. It represents a strongly NP-Hard optimization problem such that no solution has been offered to date with high performance in space utilization. In this paper, we present a new reinforcement learning (RL) framework for a 3D-BPP solution for improving performance. First, a buffer is introduced to allow multi-item action selection. By increasing the degree of freed…
Effective Online 3D Bin Packing with Lookahead Parcels Using Monte Carlo Tree Search
Key Lab of High Confidence Software Technologies (Peking University), Ministry of Education China（高可信软件技术重点实验室（北京大学））；Faculty of Computing, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China（计算机学院，哈尔滨工业大学，哈尔滨，中国）；JD Logistic, Beijing, China（京东物流，北京，中国）；School of Computer Science, Peking University, Beijing, China（计算机科学学院，北京大学，北京，中国）
Jet Propulsion Laboratory（喷气推进实验室）；California Institute of Technology（加州理工学院）；University of California, Los Angeles（加州大学洛杉矶分校）
Many combinatorial optimization problems such as the bin packing and multiple knapsack problems involve assigning a set of discrete objects to multiple containers. These problems can be used to model task and resource allocation problems in multi-agent systems and distributed systms, and can also be found as subproblems of scheduling problems. We propose bin completion, a branch-and-bound strategy for one-dimensional, multicontainer packing problems. Bin completion combines a bin-oriented search space with a powerful dominance criterion that enables us to prune much of the space. The performan…
The article proposes a heuristic approximation approach to the bin packing problem under multiple objectives. In addition to the traditional objective of minimizing the number of bins, the heterogeneousness of the elements in each bin is minimized, leading to a biobjective formulation of the problem with a tradeoff between the number of bins and their heterogeneousness. An extension of the Best-Fit approximation algorithm is presented to solve the problem. Experimental investigations have been carried out on benchmark instances of different size, ranging from 100 to 1000 items. Encouraging res…
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya（加泰罗尼亚理工大学）；Universität Wien（维也纳大学）
Two-dimensional bin packing problems are highly relevant combinatorial optimization problems. They find a large number of applications, for example, in the context of transportation or warehousing, and for the cutting of different materials such as glass, wood or metal. In this work we deal with the oriented two-dimensional bin packing problem under free guillotine cutting. In this specific problem a set of oriented rectangular items is given which must be packed into a minimum number of bins of equal size. The first algorithm proposed in this work is a randomized multi-start version of a cons…
Sichuan University（四川大学）；Huawei Noah’s Ark Lab（华为诺亚方舟实验室）；Huazhong University of Science and Technology（华中科技大学）
The bin packing problem exists widely in real logistic scenarios (e.g., packing pipeline, express delivery), with its goal to improve the packing efficiency and reduce the transportation cost. In this NP-hard combinatorial optimization problem, the position and quantity of each item in the box are strictly restricted by complex constraints and special customer requirements. Existing approaches are hard to obtain the optimal solution since rigorous constraints cannot be handled within a reasonable computation load. In this paper, for handling this difficulty, the packing knowledge is extracted …
Inst. for Information Transmission Problems, Russian Academy of Sciences（俄罗斯科学院信息传输问题研究所）
The paper described a generalized integrated glance to bin packing problems including a brief literature survey and some new problem formulations for the cases of multiset estimates of items. A new systemic viewpoint to bin packing problems is suggested: (a) basic element sets (item set, bin set, item subset assigned to bin), (b) binary relation over the sets: relation over item set as compatibility, precedence, dominance; relation over items and bins (i.e., correspondence of items to bins). A special attention is targeted to the following versions of bin packing problems: (a) problem with mul…
This work aims to study and explore the use of Gene Expression Programming (GEP) in solving the on-line Bin-Packing problem. The main idea is to show how GEP can automatically find acceptable heuristic rules to solve the problem efficiently and economically. One dimensional Bin-Packing problem is considered in the course of this work with the constraint of minimizing the number of bins filled with the given pieces. Experimental Data includes instances of benchmark test data taken from Falkenauer (1996) for One-dimensional Bin-Packing Problems. Results show that GEP can be used as a very powerf…
School of Computer Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology（华中科技大学计算机科学与技术学院）
We address a new variant of packing problem called the circle bin packing problem (CBPP), which is to find a dense packing of circle items to multiple square bins so as to minimize the number of used bins. To this end, we propose an adaptive large neighborhood search (ALNS) algorithm, which uses our Greedy Algorithm with Corner Occupying Action (GACOA) to construct an initial layout. The greedy solution is usually in a local optimum trap, and ALNS enables multiple neighborhood search that depends on the stochastic annealing schedule to avoid getting stuck in local minimum traps. Specifically, …
Bin Packing with Conflicts (BPC) are problems in which items with compatibility constraints must be packed in the least number of bins, not exceeding the capacity of the bins and ensuring that non-conflicting items are packed in each bin. In this work, we introduce the Bin Packing Problem with Compatible Categories (BPCC), a variant of the BPC in which items belong to conflicting or compatible categories, in opposition to the item-by-item incompatibility found in previous literature. It is a common problem in the context of last mile distribution to nanostores located in densely populated area…
A 3D flexible bin packing problem (3D-FBPP) arises from the process of warehouse packing in e-commerce. An online customer's order usually contains several items and needs to be packed as a whole before shipping. In particular, 5% of tens of millions of packages are using plastic wrapping as outer packaging every day, which brings pressure on the plastic surface minimization to save traditional logistics costs. Because of the huge practical significance, we focus on the issue of packing cuboid-shaped items orthogonally into a least-surface-area bin. The existing heuristic methods for classic 3…
