AGV.AllocatableObject
Inherits from Object
Description
An object that can be allocated by an AGV.
An allocatable object is either a Control Point or a Control Area. The primary properties you can get on this object are its set of allocation requests and its set of allocations.
Properties
| allocations | An array-like list of AGV.AllocationPoints that represent the set of AGVs who have currently allocated the object. |
| requests | An array-like list of AGV.AllocationPoints that represent the set of AGVs currently requesting to allocate the object. |
| routingConstraint | A value defining how/whether AGVs may travel through the object when calculating routing. |
Methods
| allocate | Attempts to allocate the object. |
Details
AGV.AllocatableObject.allocations
readonly allocations
Description
An array-like list of AGV.AllocationPoints that represent the set of AGVs who have currently allocated the object.
AGV.AllocatableObject.requests
readonly requests
Description
An array-like list of AGV.AllocationPoints that represent the set of AGVs currently requesting to allocate the object.
AGV.AllocatableObject.routingConstraint
int routingConstraint
Description
A value defining how/whether AGVs may travel through the object when calculating routing.
The routingConstraint property takes one of the values of AGV.RoutingConstraint. Setting this value makes the AllocatableObject into a dynamic barrier for routing purposes. The default value (AGV.RoutingConstraint.None) means AGVs can travel through the object. Setting it to some other value, e.g. AGV.RoutingConstraint.Blocked, will cause AGVs to route around the object, depending on the value you use.
Note that this supplements your use of conditional rules on paths. The difference is that conditional rules work with routing table caching, while routingConstraint does not. If there is any object in the model with a routingConstraint set to something other than AGV.RoutingConstraint.None, then the AGV network will ignore any cached routing tables and recalculate paths anew. As such, using routingConstraint can have significant impacts on run speed because it must recalculate the path on every travel operation. Nevertheless, it can be useful when the potential number of dynamic barriers is so large that route caching (and creating all the conditional rules) is impractical.
When routing constraints are set and the AGV network is building routes dynamically, it will switch to an 'A* mode', using the A* search algorithm to quickly find the path from the source to the destination. As soon as it finds the best path, it will shortcut the search algorithm, not filling out the routing table fully as it usually would when executing standard Dijkstra's algorithm. This is done to make the path search as efficient as possible when using dynamic barriers.
AGV.AllocatableObject.allocate()
| AGV.AllocationPoint allocate( Object allocator , int force = 0 ) |
Parameters
| allocator | The object that is to 'own' the allocation. |
| force | Should be 1 or 0. If 1, it will 'force' the allocation, meaning it will ignore the object's maximum allocations property, allocating the object even if it has reached its allocation capacity. If 0, then if the object has already reached its allocation capacity, a request will be added to its request queue. |
Returns
| AGV.AllocationPoint | An AGV.AllocationPoint that represents the allocation. You can get the allocation point's requestState property to see whether or not the allocation was completed immediately or was added to the object's list of requests. |
Description
Attempts to allocate the object.
Generally you do not need to call this method because allocations and deallocations are managed by default by the AGV travel behavior. You would use this method if you need to allocate a control area or control point that isn't part of the standard travel path of an AGV. For example, you can make items in a conveyor system allocate a control area through the OnArrival trigger of a conveyor decision point. There are pick list options that do this automatically and call this method.
If you use this method to allocate an object, then later in the simulation you should call deallocate on the result allocation point to remove the allocation.
AGV.AllocationPoint alloc = controlArea.allocate(current);
if (alloc.requestState == AGV.RequestState.Requested) {
... // do stuff if the object was not allocated immediately
await alloc.event("OnAllocate");
}
... // do stuff once the control area is allocated.