A Tabu Search Based Algorithm for Cargo Loading Problem

Given a finite set of three-dimensional boxes in different sizes and an unlimited set of containers in the same size, the cargo loading problem is to determine the minimum number of containers that can contain all the boxes. The problem is NP-hard. In this paper, we propose to use Tabu search optimization with a tree-based heuristic cargo loading algorithm as its inner heuristic to solve this problem. This approach is more flexible in taking different box conditions into consideration. Experimental results have shown that the new approach could find better solutions on average than those by other recent meta- or heuristic algorithms.