Logistics Scheduling: Traditional vs AI-Based Approaches and Proposed Graph-Based AI Solution

Traditional and AI-driven scheduling approaches in warehouse robotics differ in design, methods, and trade-offs. The table below summarizes architecture, algorithm types, advantages, and disadvantages of each approach based on recent literature (Choosing Solution Strategies for Scheduling Automated Guided Vehicles in Production Using Machine Learning). It highlights that traditional schedulers use static, rule-based control, whereas AI-based schedulers employ data-driven, adaptive techniques.

Aspect	Traditional Algorithms	AI-Based Algorithms
Architecture	- Centralized or hierarchical planner; often static scheduling (tasks fixed in advance) (Choosing Solution Strategies for Scheduling Automated Guided Vehicles in Production Using Machine Learning) - Manually configured rules (dispatch priorities)	- Decentralized/data-driven control; dynamic re-planning in real-time (Choosing Solution Strategies for Scheduling Automated Guided Vehicles in Production Using Machine Learning) - Integrates learning modules (feedback loops, analytics)
Algorithm Types	- Dispatch rules (priority-based heuristics) (Choosing Solution Strategies for Scheduling Automated Guided Vehicles in Production Using Machine Learning) - Metaheuristics (genetic algorithms, simulated annealing, Tabu search) (Choosing Solution Strategies for Scheduling Automated Guided Vehicles in Production Using Machine Learning) - Exact optimization (mixed-integer/linear programming, integer programming) (Choosing Solution Strategies for Scheduling Automated Guided Vehicles in Production Using Machine Learning)	- Machine learning (neural networks, deep learning) (Artificial Intelligence to Solve Production Scheduling Problems in Real Industrial Settings: Systematic Literature Review) - Reinforcement learning (e.g. Q-learning, Deep Q-Nets) (Artificial Intelligence to Solve Production Scheduling Problems in Real Industrial Settings: Systematic Literature Review) - Swarm/evolutionary (particle swarm optimization, ant colony optimization) (Artificial Intelligence to Solve Production Scheduling Problems in Real Industrial Settings: Systematic Literature Review) - Other AI models (decision trees, SVMs) (Artificial Intelligence to Solve Production Scheduling Problems in Real Industrial Settings: Systematic Literature Review)
Advantages	- Proven, predictable behavior; easy to verify and certify - Low computational overhead; simple implementation - Well-understood (straightforward tuning)	- Adaptive to changing conditions; learns patterns from data - Continuously improves scheduling (predicts future states) - Can reduce cost and energy use by optimizing globally (Artificial Intelligence to Solve Production Scheduling Problems in Real Industrial Settings: Systematic Literature Review) - Often yields better throughput in complex environments (Artificial Intelligence to Solve Production Scheduling Problems in Real Industrial Settings: Systematic Literature Review)
Disadvantages	- Poor adaptability; struggles with dynamic or stochastic changes (Choosing Solution Strategies for Scheduling Automated Guided Vehicles in Production Using Machine Learning) - May be suboptimal on complex problems (NP-hard cases) (Choosing Solution Strategies for Scheduling Automated Guided Vehicles in Production Using Machine Learning) - Manual tuning required; rigid rule-set can break under disruption	- Higher computational complexity and implementation cost - Requires large data sets and training; risk of overfitting - “Black box” nature (harder to interpret/validate)

Sources: The comparison above draws on recent studies. For example, Schweitzer et al. note that traditional schedulers “often have difficulties in adapting to changing environment conditions” (Choosing Solution Strategies fo