A hybrid chaos firefly algorithm for three-dimensional irregular packing problem

Abstract

The packing problem study how to pack multiple objects without overlap. Various exact and approximate algorithms have been developed for two-dimensional regular and irregular packing as well as three-dimensional bin packing. However, few results are reported for three-dimensional irregular packing problems. This paper will develop a method for solving threedimensional irregular packing problems. A three-grid approximation technique is first introduced to approximate irregular objects. Then, a hybrid heuristic method is developed to place and compact each individual objects where chaos search is embedded into fire y algorithm in order to enhance the algorithm's diversity for optimizing packing sequence and orientations. Results from several computational experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the hybrid algorithm.