How to customize Barrier in A* network to allow or restrict people to cross?

[athodupunoori]

[ FlexSim 21.1.5 ]

In my project i want people in A* network to stop at barrier or flow through barrier according to the label assigned to a control point marked in blue circle.

the label of the control point fluctuate between "green" and "red" for every 15 seconds.

at first "people red assign label" function the label of control point is "red". at this point if any people approach the barrier, it should not allow people to cross it.

after 15 seconds the label of that control point changes to green. at this point barrier should allow people to cross through barrier.

is there a way that we can make this kind of modifications to barrier according to the label of a control point.

[jason_lightfootVL7B4 · Accepted solution]

You can set a condition for the barrier to be active which can read the state of your crossing. In the attached model I show the barrier is deactivated between 100 and 200 seconds.

TimedBarrier.fsm

The problem here is that the evaluation is at the start of travel and it's not reevaluated during travel. To make that happen you could use an agent proximity to the barrier or maintain a list of travelers. To force the reevaluation of travel you can just preempt the travellers with a zero time delay task.

You may then run into another problem in that the travellers complain they cannot reach a destination or they start walking in a different direction if an alternative path is available. In those cases you might be better preempting them with a Utilize task and then free them once they can cross.

[athodupunoori]

your model is in 22.1 flexsim version, i have the lower version, can you post pictures and explain how did you approach this problem

[jason_lightfootVL7B4]

Here's the model in 21.0 - unfortunately it needs 21.2 or later to run it seems.

TimedBarrier_21.0.fsm

[athodupunoori]

is there any other way that we can stop travelers for some time and release them after certain time. like first 15 seconds people can cross the barrier and next 15 seconds every one should wait at the barrier and then release them to cross the barrier?

[jason_lightfootVL7B4]

Yes - you can give them a preempting task sequence to delay them - but to detect that they are at the barrier crossing you will probably need to use a proximity agent system.

[athodupunoori]

can you show me how to do that, i am completely new to A* Network

[jason_lightfootVL7B4]

It's not a function of A* - you'd be preempting the A* travel with a delay task (which doesn't need a navigator) - the part you need is detection of when to do that, which I suggest could be done using proximity agents.

[jason_lightfootVL7B4]

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[hicham_elbaz6949F]

Hello @Jason Lightfoot I wanna do similar thing just instead of time I wanna do Forklift in Aisle warehouse. the Aisle warehouse is unidirectional normally. but if there is no one in the Aisle the forklift can come opposite direction (become two direction) to start picking. Is there a way to add this rule?

[jason_lightfootVL7B4]

There are probably many ways to do this.

Logically you'd need to understand/track which objects are in the aisle and at what position and then have the second traveller go to a waypoint at the end of the aisle that allows them to travel to their destination bay without trying to pass the first traveller. As with most models the key is keeping a track of what is happening so that you can easily lookup and reference objects - usually for me that involves lists and maps. So then a barrier rule to create your desired behaviour would need to reference which traveller was already in the aisle and at what position/bay along with the 2nd traveller's target bay for that aisle and return true/false accordingly.

[hicham_elbaz6949F]

Hello @Jason Lightfoot. I would like to implement in this model where the barrier once we have one forklift barrier will be two way once more than one forklift on barrier only one way. here is the model loading_1.fsm version is 24.2.2