The Hyper-Cube Framework Ant System for the Lock Chamber Arrangement

Inland river transport is provided with low cost, large quantity, long distance transport, its best advantage is low cost. However, with the rapid development of social economy, speeding up the process of inland waterway transportation, inland river transportation demand increased fast, inland water transportation has already become a tough problem of the inland waterway transportation, it brings the wasted time more, operating costs higher, make the inland waterway transportation become the bottleneck, which restricts inland water transport, shipping economic and social development. So how to avoid and reduce the impact of inland waterway transport traffic jams, improve the ship lock navigation capability and keep the inland waterway transportation efficiency, safety and economic, which need the shipping department to solve the problem urgently. This paper used an ant system in the hyper-cube framework to solve the lock chamber arrangement optimization problem, established the hyper-cube framework ant system for the lock chamber arrangement, implemented corresponding algorithm through further design, and tested the validity of it through the Yangtze Gorges lock chamber arrangement and the Qingyuan Water Conservancy lock chamber arrangement. The calculation results show that the hyper-cube framework ant system is effective in application of the lock chamber arrangement for the improving the ship lock practical navigation capacity.