A holonic architecture for the global automated transportation system (GATS)

High costs of congestion and collisions have triggered the research into completely automated transportation systems. The GAT system differentiates itself by its holonic architecture. In the simplified situation where there is just one vehicle and a deterministic system, we propose an algorithm for this architecture that can create a point-to-point shortest path. Because of the special features of the holonic architecture we use the proven label-correcting algorithm of Pallottino and decrease the number of areas searched by an A* search like approach. The result is a flexible algorithm that is scalable to as many hierarchical levels as needed, thus usable for small as well as extended areas.