Service Scheduling Using an Agent Based Model with GIS Integration

Abstract

In agricultural system, to efficiently utilize costly equipment (combine, tractor, etc.), owners rent them out to farmers. The service (harvesting, ploughing, etc.) has to be provided within a particular time window. So, it's important to optimize the scheduling of the service requests to maximize the revenue while reducing costs resulting from inefficient operations, e.g. field to field travel. In this context complexities like road traffic, field geometry make it difficult to apply formulations such as Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP) or Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP). This paper presents an Agent Based simulation model of the system. Geographic Information System (GIS) is employed to provide information about the context such as field coordinates and boundary, routes for field to field travel, etc. Agricultural equipment is an agent moving from field to field, and working on the field in predefined in-field path. Schedules for a day are compared using simulation model on basis of total profit.