I have an AnyLogic model with 3 sources that are connected to queue. How can i set to each of the source its Priority(or can it be the obvious parametre?) and what should i write to the field Agent priority(default is zero).enter image description here
to do that you have to create a custom agent with a parameter or variable called priority.
On the source block you define the priority of the agent. For instance:
agent.priority=2;
and in the queue block you choose the "priority-based" option in the queueing (which is what you did) and you set up the agent priority as agent.priority
Related
I am trying to work out how to use the "Population of agents" radio button functionality in the Advanced section of the "Queue" block from the process library.
I am able to successfully select the "Population of agents" option and specify the number of queues to be in the population however I am then unable to direct agents to any of the queues in the population. Ultimately, I need to send agents to specific queues in the collection (population) but I can't seem to work out how to do that.
The screenshot shows a bit more of what I am trying to achieve:
Even though you have the option to create a population of queues, there's no possible use for it since you can't add an agent to the queue without a flow (for insteance enter block)
In order to make a good population of queues, you need to create a population of agents called for instance QueueAgent
And in this queue agent you will have
enter->queue->exit
Then you can choose to what queue to send your agent to send it by using queueAgents.get(index).enter.take(agent) where index is the queue index to which your agent needs to be sent
the exit block will send your agent back to an enter block that will be connected to speacialtyProcesses
The only blocks in which it makes sense to create a population are the blocks that create agents such as source or enter blocks.
I know the basics of AnyLogic/Process Modeling Library and am about to teach simulation of basic queues with AnyLogic, transitioning from Simul8 that I 've used for many years.
I have agents of two types, 1 and 2, sent to respective queues 1 and 2, which then feed a single "service" point, so that type 1 takes higher priority (that is, whenever service is ready to pull work, it pulls from queue 1 if it is non-empty, regardless of the size of queue 2). How to capture this as simply as possible?
Having seen the reference pages for a Queue object, my preliminary (unworked) idea is to use a single queue, and control agent priority by the Queue.QUEUING_PRIORITY- Priority-based" option.
For comparison, a solution in the Simul8 software is: set "service" routing-in discipline to "priority"; and assign different priorities to the two queues.
Yes you are right you cant use two queues as the pull from the queues will be done in a round robin fashion. See the screenshot below from the AnyLogic training textbook
You should use queueing in a single queue and you can have either a single parameterised source or two.
See example below
I have 2 sources and at each of them, I set the priority to a local variable inside my agent. Agents from source 1's variable is set to 1 and the from source set to 0.
Then inside the queue, I set the priority so that the agents from source 1 is always in front.
I am trying to implement reinforcement learning in Anylogic using pathmind library, the RL agent can take either of two actions which is changing the priority rule of a Queue block.
I have a Queue block where I'm using priority-based queueing. I have two priority rules: using agent's departure date & agent's wait time. I want to either of these rules during runtime using another function called doAction(action). A value 0 or 1 will be passed to this function. The function body would be like this:
doAction(action){
if(action==0){
//set departure_date as priority rule of Queueblock}
else{
//set wait_time as priority rule of Queueblock}
}
The expression of my queue block is given here. .
RL parameters are mentioned here.
What should be the code to set priority rule dynamically from the doAction(action) function?
I would suggest to rather make the priority rule dynamic inside the queue.
I assume you have some agent with a field for departureTime as well as for waitingTime.
Then you can do something like the following:
You simply have a different priority level for each agent if the priority option changes.
Here I am using boolean useDaprtureTime, but you can make it as complex as you need and even have a function in the "Agent Priority" field that returns the priority level.
Just remember that you need to call queue.sortAgents() if you change the rule since only the new agents that arrive are sorted, not the entire list of agents waiting in the queue since this will be too resource-intensive.
To use priorities, you specify an expression to determine the priority of the agent in the Queue's "Agent priority" or "Agent 1 is preferred to agent 2" property (depending what priority scheme you're using).
So have that expression be calling a function (defined within the agent type in question) which returns either the departure date or wait-time alternative.
Also, you didn't say whether this is a global setting --- i.e., use either departure or wait-time-based priorities for the whole run --- or could change dynamically; if you want the latter, you potentially need to call the sortAgents function of the Queue block (which might be inside a Service or Seize block, depending what you're doing) at the appropriate times (i.e., when your prioritisation scheme changes) to re-calculate all the priorities for agents currently waiting in the queue.
EDIT: I see from your other comment that you're trying to use reinforcement learning, presumably learning how to make a decision on how to prioritise the agents. (You should put that in an edit to your question since it's pretty important and relevant!)
So if you view the queue as the 'learning agent', you need to separate the learning action (which will set up / decide which prioritisation scheme you're using) from then using that scheme in the prioritisation.
This depends on whether you're using a Queue on its own (with priority based or agent comparison queueing), or you're doing this within a Service or Seize block. It matters because the on-enter action of the latter runs before the priority calculation expression but, with a plain Queue, it runs after the priority calculation.
Case 1: Using Service or Seize block
Have the on-enter action be the RL action which would then, say, set some variable to say which prioritisation scheme it had chosen and then call sortAgents on its embedded queue (self.queue) to recalc all the priorities. Then have switches in the priority calculation expression as above to do the calculation for the incoming agent using the required scheme.
Case 2: Using a plain Queue block
As above, but do the prioritisation scheme decision in the on-at-exit actions of all immediately preceding blocks (i.e., so that this is run just before the agent arrives at the Queue block and has its prioritisation allocated).
You can always use 2 queue blocks and send agents to only one using a SelectOutput block in front of them.
Each agent decides which queue to use based on your conditions.
In my AnyLogic simulation model, I have two sources and going through two service blocks in a closed loop. At starting time I inject 1 50T Truck and 2 20T Trucks.
Descriptive image here:
Image of Model
At the second service block, "crusher1", I want the queue to always prioritize the agent "truck50ts" over "truck20ts". How can this be done?
Replace your Service block with Seize, Queue, Delay and Release blocks (same as a Service but more options for you).
in the Queue properties, set the queue priority to "agent comparison".
In the conditional code, write agent1 instanceof Truck_50tons ? true : false as below:
This assumes your 50t truck is an agent of a custom agent type called Truck_50tons (create those at the sources)
I'm trying to emulate what QUEST does when a buffer is queried for a certain Part. In there if the part is not in the buffer the request is left pending and if a Part arrives to the buffer it's released to the machine requesting it. I have also seen this behavior in SimPy which is another DES engine.
I can't seem to find a simple way to do this in AL. The queue block has the following methods:
release(agent): Will return false and forget about the request if there's not an agent as the one specified
remove(agent): Will return null if there's no agent in the queue
So those methods won't do what I want...
It gets a little more complicated as the queue contains agents with parameters and I want to request a specific set of parameters (let's say the agents have a number parameter that can go from 1 to 3 and I'm only interested in agents in the queue if this parameter has the value 2).
Also there's a series of agents pulling this agents from the queue simultaneously and I'd like a priority to be set (let's say FIFO)
so there's a couple things that I've tried and have lead me nowhere:
Using a seize block instead of queue and adding the agents to the embedded queue in the seize block. -> I can't find the proper method to seize from the buffer in a different way from a buffer block (so I moved to option 2) but seize does have a promising customize resource choice that could help with the parameter down-selection
Using a seize block and storing the agents in a pool as resources. issues with dynamic creation of resources, seizing the appropriate one etc...
Creating a queue of requests that have returned null from a queue. This sounds like an overkill but I'll look into it
All of those appear to be a bit complex for such a simple thing in other softwares for simulation so I'm wondering if I'm missing something or if someone has come across this issue before
Suggestion 1: may it helps you to store the agents in the queue in a collection (or different collections, according to the parameter settings). Events: "on enter" and "on exit"
Suggestion 2: may the Wait - block helps you here?