CN109987366B

CN109987366B - Unmanned warehouse system and warehouse entry and exit method

Info

Publication number: CN109987366B
Application number: CN201910036500.3A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 赵悦荣; 刘美艳; 褚佳; 陈落根; 罗振军
Original assignee: Hangzhou Dachuan Intelligent Technology Co ltd
Current assignee: Hangzhou Dachuan Intelligent Technology Co ltd
Priority date: 2019-01-15
Filing date: 2019-01-15
Publication date: 2023-05-05
Anticipated expiration: 2039-01-15
Also published as: CN109987366A

Abstract

The invention discloses an unmanned warehouse system and a warehouse-in and warehouse-out method, which solve the problems of complex deployment, inconvenient maintenance, high cost and the like of the existing system. The system embodiment is provided with a channel support frame with a two-layer structure below the goods shelf, wherein the lower layer is used for automatically guiding the trolley to pass, the upper layer is used for temporarily buffering or passing through the normalized container, and the interlayer support plate is communicated along the length direction or the width direction of the whole goods shelf. When the goods are delivered out of the warehouse, the stacking trolley automatically advances to a designated goods shelf and aligns, the goods taking mechanism is used for taking out the normalized containers on the goods shelf, then the normalized containers are lowered to the upper layer of the support frame, the containers are cached on the support plate, then the trolley is automatically guided to advance to the lower side of the container through the lower layer of the support frame to jack up the containers and separate the containers from the support pieces, then the trolley advances to a sorting place through the channel and the roadway, and the warehouse entering process is opposite. The system is easy to deploy, easy to maintain and low in cost, and a large number of robots can work concurrently through the dispatching system, so that the overall efficiency is high.

Description

Unmanned warehouse system and warehouse entry and exit method

Technical Field

The invention relates to the technical field of storage, in particular to an unmanned storage system and a storage-in and-out method.

Background

A central problem with automated warehousing is the efficient and automated transportation of items between the shelves and the sorting stations. At present, a plurality of warehouses begin to implement automation, and are equipped with a large number of mechanical devices, such as integrated shelves, shuttle vehicles, stackers, forklifts, automatic guided vehicles or AGVs, conveyor belts and the like, so that the labor cost is reduced, the warehouse sorting efficiency is improved, but the schemes are not satisfactory.

Compared with the solutions of an integrated goods shelf, a shuttle car and the like, the automatic storage solution adopting the mobile robot has less field transformation, is easier to deploy and realize high concurrency operation, and is more popular in some occasions. The mobile robot schemes may be classified into a single type of mobile robot scheme and a plurality of types of robot cooperation schemes including at least one mobile robot according to the types of mobile robots used.

The advantage of using a single kind of mobile robot solution is that it is easy to modularize and standardize, and the malfunctioning equipment unit can be replaced quickly. The Kiva robotic System of Amazon is a typical representative. Patent US7826919 describes the use of a submersible autonomous navigational cart to effect movement of unitized shelves, effecting "goods to people". However, the whole goods shelf is carried by the scheme, so that each mobile trolley needs to have larger loading capacity, and the equipment cost is greatly increased; furthermore, the shelves cannot be too high or can easily topple over during movement, which restricts the increase in warehouse capacity. The japanese pine company in patent JP2004277062 adopts a single type of mobile robot with a lifting table and a fork-taking means to be in butt joint with a shelf, but in order to ensure the motion stability of the robot, the number of shelf layers is generally not more than three, the storage capacity of a warehouse is limited, and the cost of a single mobile robot is high.

The adoption of multiple robot collaboration schemes, including at least one mobile robot, may take advantage of the features of different robots. The Amazon company in patent US10138060 adopts the scheme that a modularized two-degree-of-freedom translation mechanism and a telescopic push rod are arranged at the back of each goods shelf, so that the goods can be moved to a certain position and pushed from inside to outside; on the other hand, the automatic guiding vehicle is provided with a lifting platform which can be moved to a specified shelf position to enable the height of the lifting platform to be level with a certain layer of the shelf, so that articles are received and then transported to a sorting workstation; the scheme has long deployment period, high cost and low reliability. The solution of the Dematic company in US9550624 is to use a mobile trolley equipped with articulated arms and a mobile trolley with multi-layer basket, the latter moving with the former, the latter completing the transfer of the articles from the shelves to the basket. The scheme is easy to deploy, basically does not need to reform the site, but the articulated mechanical arm has limited goods taking range, low loading capacity and high cost. The germany Knapp company proposes a solution in patent EP3170773 that some space is reserved at the bottom layer positions at two sides of an auto-stereoscopic warehouse for parking movable multi-layer shelves, articles are placed into the shelves from the stereoscopic warehouse by a tunnel stacker, and a moving trolley moves to the lower part of the shelves to jack up the shelves and then send the shelves to a sorting workstation. According to the scheme, the stereoscopic warehouse needs to be installed, the deployment cost is high, the stereoscopic warehouse cannot work continuously when faults occur in the stereoscopic warehouse, the mobile trolley can only move at the periphery of the stereoscopic warehouse and cannot enter the inner space of the stereoscopic warehouse, the reserved space for the periphery to deploy is small, and throughput and efficiency cannot be improved by increasing the number of the mobile trolleys.

To sum up, most of the existing schemes are complex to deploy, require to reform the site and install a large amount of auxiliary electromechanical equipment, cannot continue to work when the equipment fails, are inconvenient to maintain, or require to configure a large amount of heavy-load mobile trolleys or mechanical arms with high cost although the site is not required to reform. Complicated deployment, inconvenient maintenance, high cost and the like limit popularization.

Disclosure of Invention

In order to solve the technical problems, the invention discloses an unmanned warehouse system and a warehouse-in and warehouse-out method, and the technical scheme of the invention is implemented as follows:

the unmanned warehouse system adopting a mobile robot and a buffer device and a warehouse-in and warehouse-out method utilizing the buffer device to improve the operation efficiency are provided, so that the objects placed on the shelves are taken out and transported to a sorting place to finish warehouse-out, or the objects are transported from the sorting place to the shelves and stored on the shelves to finish warehouse-in, and the unmanned warehouse-in and warehouse-out system comprises: at least one shelf, the front of which can be used for fetching and placing articles; at least one normalizing container or a movable bracket for storing scattered articles; at least one automated guided vehicle for transporting the unitized containers to a prescribed location; at least one stacking device capable of picking and placing the articles on the shelf and containing the normalized container; the management terminal carries out carrying indication on the automatic guiding trolley and the stacking equipment; the unmanned warehouse system is mainly characterized in that the goods shelf is provided with a multi-layer shelf and at least one channel supporting frame, a buffer space for the normalized container to stay is formed inside the channel supporting frame, meanwhile, a row channel, a column channel or the row channel and the column channel which run below the goods shelf are provided for the automatic guiding trolley carrying the normalized container or the movable bracket, the management terminal schedules the piling trolley to finish goods, the transfer of the normalized container between the shelf and the buffer space is included, and the automatic guiding trolley is scheduled to finish the delivery, the warehouse entry and the shift of the normalized container or the movable bracket.

Compared with the prior art, the unmanned warehouse system and the warehouse-in and warehouse-out method provided by the invention finish sorting and transporting of the articles by means of the cooperation of less movable piling cars and more small automatic guiding trolleys in a labor-division manner by means of the cache blank below the goods shelf, and realize the efficient transportation of goods to people. Advantages of this system include: the existing traditional goods shelves can be used, wires and electromechanical auxiliary equipment are not needed to be added, the needed site reconstruction is basically negligible, and the method is particularly suitable for temporary warehouses; the small automatic guiding trolley only needs to transport articles instead of the whole goods shelf, so that only small loading capacity is needed, and the cost can be greatly reduced; the two robots, namely the automatic guiding trolley and the stacking equipment, can adopt standardized mature products, and can be quickly separated from the site for maintenance when faults occur, so that the continuous operation of the whole system is not influenced. In addition, the mobile robot can adopt autonomous navigation technology, and the site can be free from any navigation auxiliary equipment which needs wire power supply. The warehouse can be moved, expanded and changed in layout at any time, and has the characteristics of high flexibility, short implementation period and convenience in dismantling, transferring and expanding.

Drawings

In order to more clearly illustrate the embodiments of the present invention or the technical solutions of the prior art, the drawings that are required in the embodiments or the description of the prior art will be briefly described, and it is obvious that the drawings in the following description are only one embodiment of the present invention, and other drawings can be obtained according to the drawings without inventive effort for a person skilled in the art.

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of a top view of an unmanned warehouse system and a principle diagram of an automatic guiding trolley under a shelf when running along a line channel to execute warehouse-in and warehouse-out operations in embodiment 1 of the present invention;

fig. 2 is a schematic front view of the working principle of the unmanned warehouse system in embodiment 1 of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a schematic side view illustrating the operation principle of the unmanned warehouse system in embodiment 1 of the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of an exemplary channel support using a fixed structural support in accordance with embodiment 1 of the present invention, wherein FIG. 4a is a channel support providing buffer space for a single normalized container, FIG. 4b is another channel support providing buffer space for a single normalized container, FIG. 4c is a channel support providing buffer space for two normalized containers, and FIG. 4d is another channel support providing buffer space for two normalized containers;

FIG. 5 is a schematic view of several exemplary standardized containers that may be placed on the support in accordance with embodiment 1 of the present invention, wherein FIG. 5a is a top and side view of a standardized receiving basket, FIG. 5b is a top and side view of a standardized pallet, and FIG. 5c is a top and side view of a standardized pallet;

fig. 6 is a schematic structural view of a gripping member for implementing fork-taking of two-sided normalized containers by the stacker in embodiment 1 of the present invention, wherein fig. 6a is a schematic structural view of the gripping member in a retracted state, fig. 6b is a schematic view of one side fork of the gripping member when extended, and fig. 6c is a schematic view of the other side fork of the gripping member when extended;

FIG. 7 is a schematic view of an exemplary channel support using a fixed structural support in accordance with embodiment 2 of the present invention, wherein FIG. 7a is a channel support providing buffer space for two standardized containers and FIG. 7b is another channel support providing buffer space for two standardized containers; FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram of the automated warehouse system according to embodiment 2 of the present invention in a top view and when the automated guided vehicle runs along the row channel under the rack to perform warehouse-in and warehouse-out operations;

fig. 9 is a schematic diagram of a top view of an unmanned warehouse system and an automatic guiding trolley in the row direction in a trolley-dedicated row roadway and in the case of performing warehouse-in and warehouse-out operations under a shelf along a column channel in embodiment 3 of the present invention;

FIG. 10 is a schematic diagram of the automated warehouse system according to embodiment 4 of the present invention when the automated guided vehicle runs under the rack along the row and column lanes to perform warehouse-in and warehouse-out operations;

FIG. 11 is a movable carriage with support legs used in embodiment 5 of the present invention;

FIG. 12 is a basic workflow diagram of a management terminal in the warehouse-in and warehouse-out method of the present invention;

FIG. 13 is a basic operation flow chart of the stacker in the warehouse-in and warehouse-out method of the present invention;

fig. 14 is a basic operation flow chart of the automatic guiding trolley in the warehouse-in and warehouse-out method of the invention.

In the above drawings, each reference numeral indicates:

10-warehousing systems; 20-ground; 30-staff; 50-sorting work stations; 60-a mobile robot maintenance station;

100-multi-layer shelves; 110-channel support; 120-multi-layered shelves; 111-support; 112-automatically guiding the trolley to pass through the space; 113-caching spaces; 114-an upright; 116-a movable carriage;

200-an automatic guiding trolley; 200 a-an empty automatic guided vehicle; 200 b-automated guided vehicle loaded with items (unitized containers or mobile carriers); 210-lifting a platform;

300-stacking vehicle; 310-lifting platform; 320-grasping means;

400-normalizing the container; 410-mating parts; 420-storage space; 430-a docking member;

11-shelf rows; 12-stacking a high row roadway; 13-shelf roadway combination; 21-a special roadway for the trolley; 22-general roadway; 23-row channels; 31-shelf columns; 32-row lanes; 33-column channels;

70 a-first type of cell; 70 b-second type of cell; 70 c-third type of cell; 70 d-fourth type cell.

Detailed Description

The following description of the embodiments of the present invention will be made clearly and completely with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which it is apparent that the embodiments described are only some embodiments of the present invention, but not all embodiments. All other embodiments, which can be made by those skilled in the art based on the embodiments of the invention without making any inventive effort, are intended to be within the scope of the invention.

Wherein like parts are designated by like reference numerals. It should be noted that the words "front", "back", "left", "right", "upper" and "lower" used in the following description refer to directions in the drawings, and the words "bottom" and "top", "inner" and "outer" refer to directions toward or away from, respectively, the geometric center of a particular component.

Example 1:

as shown in fig. 1, embodiment 1 of the present invention provides an unmanned warehouse system and a warehouse-in and warehouse-out method based on a mobile robot and a cache space, which relates to a warehouse sorting system, and the warehouse system 10 includes a dispatch control system, not shown, a plurality of multi-layer shelves 100, a plurality of automated guided vehicles 200, a plurality of stacking vehicles 300, and an optional sorting workstation 50. The automated guided vehicle 200 and the stacker 300 are typically powered by a built-in battery.

Each of the automatic guided vehicles 200 and the stacker 300 communicates with the dispatch control system through a wireless communication network, and the automatic guided vehicles 200 and the stacker 300 rely on sensors equipped with themselves, such as a laser radar, a vision sensor, a magnet wire reader, etc., and realize automatic movement and positioning by means of navigation markers arranged in a warehouse, such as a reflective strip, a two-dimensional code, an RFID patch, etc., such as a two-dimensional code attached to the ground and a shelf, etc. The plurality of autonomous guided vehicles 200 cooperate with the plurality of stacker vehicles 300 to effect the removal and transportation of the unitized containers 400 placed on the racks 100 to the sorting workstation 50, a so-called ex-warehouse process, or a so-called container delivery process, or the transportation of the unitized containers 400 from the sorting workstation 50 to the racks 100 and storage on the racks 100, a so-called in-warehouse process, or a so-called container recovery process. At the sorting station 50, the staff member 30 or the picking robot arm does not take out the articles waiting for shipment from the standardized container 400 or put the articles waiting for shipment into the standardized container 400. For purposes of illustration, the automated guided vehicle 200 with no load above is denoted by 200a, while the automated guided vehicle 200 with the standardized container 400 above is denoted by 200 b.

In order to improve the volume ratio, the shelves are arranged in a row-column mode. Typically, a plurality of modular shelves 100 are connected transversely into a shelf row 11, with a stacking lane 12 in front of each shelf row 11, with the stacking lane 12 being used primarily for the travel and operation of the stacking cart 300, but occasionally also for the automatic guidance of the cart 200 and the passage of the staff. Two rows of pallets are typically placed face-to-face to share a sandwiched stacking lane 12. The combination of the stacking lane 12 and all the pallet rows 11 facing the lane is defined as one pallet lane combination 13.

In general, two adjacent shelf roadway combinations 13 are preferably arranged in a back-to-back and close manner so as to improve the volume ratio. However, this is not absolute and a tunnel, such as a relatively narrow trolley-specific row tunnel 21, not shown, may be left between adjacent shelf tunnel assemblies 13 to facilitate quick passage of the trolley. In addition, a common roadway 22 with different widths is reserved between the shelf roadway combination 13 and the wall of the warehouse system 10, so that the trolley 200 and the stacker 300 can be conveniently and automatically guided to run or stop.

In addition, the vertically aligned racks are defined as one rack row 31, and in the direction along the rows, a layout mode in which one row of lanes 32 is provided at intervals of a plurality of rack rows is adopted, mainly for automatically guiding the traveling of the cart 200 and the stacker 300 in the row direction. The width and number of column lanes 32 may generally be as many narrow as practical for the automated guided vehicle 200 to travel, but at least one column lane wide enough to ensure that the fork lift truck 300 can travel from one fork lift lane 12 to another fork lift lane 12.

In fig. 1, thin lines and solid small arrows on or in front of the automated guided vehicle 200 represent the current path or direction of travel of the automated guided vehicle; the bold line and solid double arrow in front of the truck 300 indicate the current travel path and target position of the truck, from which it can be seen that the truck 300 can travel through the column lane 32 to other row lanes. If there is no arrow in front of the automated guided vehicle 200 and the stacker 300, it is generally indicated that it is working or standing by in place. The dashed line shown on the center line of each row of shelves is used to indicate a row channel 23 that automatically directs the cart 200 under the shelf, which is a path parallel to the stacking lane 12. In addition, there are thin lines without arrows in the figure to illustrate the usual travel path of the automated guided vehicle 200.

At the sorting site, after the automated guided vehicle 200 transfers the unitized containers 400 to the sorting station 50, it generally waits in place until the sorting station 50 returns the unitized containers 400 that were completed for sorting, after which the vehicle returns the unitized containers 400 to the corresponding racks 100.

In addition, a mobile robotic maintenance station 60 is included in the warehouse system 10 for automatically guiding maintenance and servicing of the carts 200 and the stacker 300, etc. The warehouse system 10 is also provided with a plurality of charging piles, not shown in the figure, so that the automatic guiding trolley and the stacking trolley can be charged nearby when the power is insufficient.

2-3, the multi-layered shelf 120 is arranged above the shelf 100, each layer is divided into a plurality of storage grids, 2 storage grids are arranged in the figure, and a normalized container 400 is arranged on each storage grid, wherein the normalized container 400 refers to a storage basket, a box, a pallet and the like with a size meeting a certain size requirement, and the container 400 is used for storing articles, but can also be empty for storing articles. To facilitate gripping of the container 400 and other items by the stacker 300, a pallet or rack with longitudinal grooves, etc., may be pre-placed on the storage grid, not shown. Because the width of the unitized container 400 is smaller than the width of the shelf, the placement position of the unitized container 400 on the shelf 100 is not generally on the shelf central axis, but is closer to the stacking roadway 12, so that the overturning moment born by the stacking cart 300 when the articles are taken and placed can be reduced, the lateral stability of the stacking cart is improved, and meanwhile, the taking and placing time is shortened.

A plurality of channel support frames 110 are installed below each shelf 100, wherein the channel support frames are 2 modularized, and the channel support frames can be modularized mechanical structural members independent of the shelf or can be made into a part of a customized shelf. The upright 114 of each channel support bracket 110 has a support 111 mounted thereon. Typically, the height of the trolley is approximately 250mm or so, and the support 111 may be mounted on the upright 114 at a position slightly higher than the trolley.

The support 111 divides the space in the aisle support 110 into a self-guided trolley passing space 112 and a buffer space 113 for parking the normalizing containers, wherein each buffer space 113 can be parked on one normalizing container 400, and adjacent buffer spaces can also pass through the normalizing container 400, so that the buffer space 113 is also the passing space of the normalizing container 400. There is no threshold between the aisle support frame 110 and the floor 20, so that the automatic guided vehicles can pass in the automatic guided vehicle passing space 112. A horizontal gap is left between the supports 111 so that the automated guided vehicle passing space 112 and the buffer space 113 are not separated in the shelf row direction, thus forming a row channel 23 in this direction, allowing the automated guided vehicle 200 to travel with the customized container 400.

A lifting platform 310 capable of lifting in a large range is arranged above the stacker 300, and a grabbing component 320 capable of grabbing normalized containers 400 on different layers of the goods shelf 100 is arranged on the lifting platform 310; the width of the piling car 300 is slightly smaller than that of the piling lane 12, and the grabbing parts 320 can grab the normalized containers 400 and the articles on the shelves 100 at the two sides of the piling lane 12; in the lowest position of the lifting platform 310, the gripping means may place the unitized container 400 into the cache blank 113 on both sides. By properly sizing the support 111 on the aisle support rack 110 and the standardized containers 400, it is not difficult to achieve that the empty automated guided vehicle 200 may still pass under the gripping members 320 when the gripping members 320 of the stacker 300 extend into the cache space 113.

As shown in fig. 1 to 3, a plurality of stacker 300 travel in a straight line in the stacking roadway 12 and perform positioning, lifting, gripping, and the like, to complete the vertical transfer of the standardized container 400 between the shelf 120 and the buffer space 113; the stacker 300 is not limited to work in one row roadway, and may enter the column roadway 32 from the stacker 12 and travel to other stacker 12; the stacker 300 may continue to perform the next pick task after placing the unitized containers 400 on the empty cache spaces 113 under the shelves on both sides of the stacking lane 12 without waiting in place for the automated guided vehicle 200. At the same time, the plurality of automatic guided vehicles 200 travel in the automatic guided vehicle passing space 112 inside the stacking row lanes 12, the column lanes 32 and the channel support frames, perform the actions of positioning, lifting, putting down, carrying and the like, realize the transfer of the normalized container 400 between the buffer blank 113 and the sorting workstation 50, or transfer the normalized container 400 from one buffer blank 113 to another buffer blank 113 to reduce the blockage; it will be readily appreciated that the automated guided vehicle 200b carrying the standardized containers may travel in the travel path 23 as long as the front buffer space 113 is unoccupied.

The automatic guiding trolley 200 is a small mobile robot with automatic navigation capability, and is usually driven by a differential gear train and matched with four universal follower wheels, so that the automatic guiding trolley has the characteristics of small size and low cost. In addition, the carts are generally symmetrically configured so as to be pivotable in situ. However, the specific driving form is not limited to this form, and may be an omni-directional driving train or the like. As shown in fig. 1, in the present embodiment, the automatic guided vehicle 200 preferentially travels in the column roadway 32 and the automatic guided vehicle passing space 112, and stops entering the stacking roadway 12, and avoids a path collision with the stacking vehicle 300.

The automated guided vehicle 200 also has a short travel lift platform 210 that can be submerged directly under the unitized containers 400 in the aisle support frame 110 when the lift platform 210 is lowered. The lifting platform 210 is lifted to be engaged with the engaging part 410 at the bottom of the unitized container 400 and lifts the unitized container 400 off the support 111, so that the unitized container 400 can be moved together with the cart 200, traveling in the rack row direction or column direction. In order to further improve the alignment precision of the lifting platform 210 and the bottom of the normalized container 400, a two-dimensional code can be attached to the bottom of the normalized container 400, a camera is installed on the lifting platform 210, the positioning deviation is calculated through a vision processing algorithm, and the position of the automatic guiding trolley or the position of the lifting platform is adjusted to realize accurate alignment.

Fig. 4 is a schematic view of a typical fixed structural support on a channel support in embodiment 1 of the present invention. The support 111 on the aisle support frame 1 is typically a metal plate fixed to the uprights 114, above which the unitized containers 400 can rest. The channel shelves in fig. 4a and 4b are designed to provide buffer blanks for a single normalized container 400, and the channel shelves in fig. 4c and 4d are designed to provide buffer blanks for two normalized containers 400, but it is apparent that buffer blanks can be provided for more normalized containers by combining these channel shelves. For the aisle support rack shown in fig. 4a and 4c, the automated guided vehicle 200b carrying the unitized containers may be moved in the row and column directions; whereas for the aisle support rack shown in fig. 4b and 4d, the automated guided vehicle 200b carrying the unitized containers can only move in a row direction parallel to the elongated sheet metal. The advantage of the solution shown in fig. 4b and 4d is that the stiffness of the aisle support frame can be increased, but the path planning direction of the autonomous guided vehicle is less than in the solution shown in fig. 4a and 4c, and can thus be chosen according to the actual needs. In addition, in order to maintain a good positional accuracy when the normalizing vessel 400 is parked, a plurality of limiting members, not shown, such as protrusions or grooves matching the bottom shape of the normalizing vessel, are usually additionally provided on the metal plate.

The standardized container 400 in this embodiment is a storage basket, box, pallet, or the like, in which the buffer space 113 can be placed. Fig. 5 is a schematic diagram of three exemplary standardized containers 400 that may be placed on support 111 in embodiment 1 of the present invention from a top view and a horizontal view. Wherein fig. 5a is a receiving basket, which is a variation of the unitized container 400 of fig. 2-3, with the docking member being a flange on the side of the container. Figure 5b is a typical pallet with a channel in the upper surface to facilitate the removal of the fork after the fork has lowered the article. Fig. 5c shows a lightweight pallet on which the articles are not normally stacked, but which is used to hold up other containers above that cannot be individually parked, the four corners of the bottom of which can rest on the support 111. These typical normalizing vessels all have the following basic features: the bottom is provided with a matching component 410 which can be in butt joint with the lifting platform 210 of the automatic guiding trolley and is usually arranged at the center of the bottom, the working mode of the matching component 410 comprises pin hole matching, electromagnet adsorption, matching based on an anti-slip pad or a magic tape, and the like, for example, a conical counter bore is arranged at the bottom of the normalized container 400, a conical bulge is arranged at the corresponding position at the top of the lifting platform 210, pin hole matching is formed after the two are aligned, for example, a patch is embedded at the bottom of the normalized container 400, and an electromagnet is arranged at the corresponding position at the top of the lifting platform 210; inside or above the normalizing vessel 400 is a storage space 420 in which items can be placed; having the necessary resting means 430 at the periphery or bottom of the normalizing vessel 400 for its resting on the support 111; the unitized container 400 should also have a gripped component or structure for gripping the gripping component 320 of the stacker 300, not shown, depending on the working form of the gripping component 320, for example, if the gripping component 320 of the stacker adopts a fork-lift type, two wooden strips may be simply placed in advance on the shelf at the position where the unitized container 400 is placed for lifting, if the gripping component 320 adopts an electromagnet adsorption type, iron pieces may be embedded in the side of the unitized container, and so on.

Fig. 6 is a schematic structural diagram of a gripping member 320 for implementing the fork-taking of the normalized container on both sides of the stacker in embodiment 1 of the present invention. The two-sided fork lift function is a requisite function for commercial narrow roadway stacking vehicles and a variety of conventional designs are available, and this figure is merely illustrative of a relatively simple design in which the stacking vehicle 300 may remove a standardized container 400 from a shelf on either side of the stacking roadway 12 and then place it on the shelf on the opposite side, and is not intended to limit the invention. Fig. 6a shows a schematic view of the gripping element 320 in the retracted state, with a fork 321 that can be extended to the right and a fork 322 that can be extended to the left. A motor driven linear motion module is provided under both forks, wherein the forks 322 have an additional small stroke lift device 323 comprising 2 drive motors 3231 and two sets of scissor jack 3232. The drive motor 3231 can raise and lower the scissor lift 3232 via a speed reducer and screw drive. As shown in fig. 6b, the fork 321 may extend rightward when the small stroke lift device 323 is lowered, and the fork 322 may extend leftward when the small stroke lift device 323 is raised. In fact, the gripping members of the stacking machine for gripping the normalized containers at two sides can also be in the form of electromagnets, etc., iron sheets can be fixed on the side surfaces of the normalized containers 400, and electromagnet chucks are arranged on the gripping members, so that the normalized containers 400 are attracted when the electromagnet chucks are electrified, and the normalized containers 400 are released when the electromagnet chucks are powered off. Further, the gripping members may also be designed as a combination of forks with electromagnets or the like.

In embodiment 1, the dispatching method of using the normalized container buffer space 113 in the channel support frame 110 by the stacker 300 and the automatic guiding trolley 200 in a time sharing manner is adopted to improve the warehouse-out and warehouse-in efficiency of the normalized container 400, and various simple strategies and complex strategies can be comprehensively adopted.

The simple strategy refers to setting fixed segments for a line of cache space in advance, and the fixed segments are respectively used for warehousing and ex-warehouse, and the cache space is used in a time sharing mode, including but not limited to the following strategies:

strategy 1: the buffer space under the same shelf is divided into left and right sections for warehousing and ex-warehouse of the normalized container 400, the right half of the buffer space number is used for delivering the normalized container 400, the left half is used for recovering the normalized container 400, the delivering queue and the recovering queue are in a rule of placing the normalized container 400 from the right end to the left end in sequence, the normalized container 400 at the leftmost end is firstly jacked and carried away by the automatic guiding trolley 200 entering from the leftmost end if the trolley 200a is an empty trolley, the container 400 is firstly delivered to the foremost idle buffer position of the recovering queue by the automatic guiding trolley 200b carrying the normalized container 400 to be warehoused, the normalized container 400 is dropped and then driven to the lower part of the normalized container 400 at the rightmost end of the delivering queue, the normalized container 400 is taken away by the lifting platform again, and if the normalized container 400 to be delivered is not at the right end, the trolley 200 waits or continues to be forwards driven to other shelves needing ex-warehouse.

Strategy 2: the storage and retrieval of the normalized containers 400 are performed on the buffer spaces under the two rows of racks of one rack lane combination, for example, the buffer spaces 113 on one side of the stacker lane 12 are placed in the order from right to left by the stacker 300 to wait for the sorted normalized containers 400 to be delivered, and the buffer spaces 113 on the other side are placed in the order from left to right by the automatic guiding cart 200 to wait for the normalized containers 400 to be retrieved and retrieved, and the automatic guiding cart 200b carrying the normalized containers 400 to be retrieved can continue to run to the buffer spaces on the other side for delivery after placing the normalized containers 400 on the buffer spaces on one side.

The simple strategy is reliable and avoids possible motion interference of the grasping member 320 of the stacker 300 with the automatic guided vehicle 200. But the efficiency is often not the highest. Other more complex strategies may be employed in practical applications, including but not limited to the following:

strategy 3: the buffer space under the same row of shelves is not provided with a fixed segment, the stacker 300 and the cargo automatic guiding trolley 200b use idle buffer spaces in a time sharing manner to carry out warehouse entry and warehouse exit of the normalized container 400, and one end is adopted to go out, one end is adopted to go in, the right end is adopted to go out, the left end is adopted to go in, or the right end is adopted to go in, the left end is adopted to go out, and the stacker 300 is responsible for searching the nearest idle position without interference. For example, the stacker 300 places the unitized container 400 removed from the pallet 100 in a proper free position at the far left end of all the load automatic guiding dollies 200b in the moving state, or waits for all the load automatic guiding dollies 200b in the moving state to pass the current free position and then be placed. A plurality of empty automatic guiding trolleys 200a enter the lower part of the goods shelf from the left end in sequence to jack up and transport the normalized containers 400 to be delivered at the rightmost end in the queue; the automatic guiding trolley 200b carrying the containers to be put in storage puts down the normalized containers 400 by first conveying the normalized containers 400 to an empty buffer space position at the right end of the queue, lowering the lifting platform, then continuing to advance to the position below the normalized containers 400 to be sorted at the rightmost end, and raising the lifting platform again to transport the normalized containers.

Since both the stacking apparatus and the automated guided vehicle carrying the standardized containers require the use of a buffer space under the pallet row, there is a possibility of collision, and in addition to running the time-sharing scheduling method described above on the scheduling level, the automated guided vehicle 200 may also run an obstacle avoidance algorithm to ensure safety and reliability. Generally, the path planning of the stacker has a higher priority, and thus the path planning of the automatic guided vehicle is adjusted based on the path planning information of the stacker, etc. For example, when an automatic guided vehicle carrying a standardized container is traveling along a lane under a pallet row in preparation for entering a forward next lane support, the automatic guided vehicle confirms that no other obstacle such as an automatic guided vehicle or a standardized container exists in the next lane support based on information obtained by wireless communication and information obtained by a self-sensor system, and obtains time period and position information that a gripping member of a stacker apparatus stretches into and stays in a forward cache space by wireless communication, and compares the time period and position information that itself passes through the forward cache space, and enters the next lane support when no interference occurs.

Example 2:

fig. 7 is a schematic view of an exemplary fixed structural support on a channel support in accordance with embodiment 2 of the present invention. Wherein for the aisle support stand shown in fig. 7a, the unitized containers 400 can rest above the supports and can move in the row and column directions, with the advantage of a more flexible path planning for the automated guided vehicles; whereas for the channel support shown in fig. 7b, the unitized container 400 can rest above the support but can only be moved in a column direction parallel to the elongated sheet metal, an advantage of this configuration is that the rigidity of the channel support can be increased.

Fig. 8 is a schematic diagram of the overall layout of the article sorting system and the principle of the automatic guiding trolley in the column direction under the shelf according to embodiment 2 of the present invention. Unlike example 1, the column passage 33 in fig. 7 where the automated guided vehicle 200 travels passes through the stacker row tray 12 where the stacker 300 travels mainly. It is necessary to avoid collision of the automatic guided vehicle 200 with the stacker 300 by a path planning algorithm and to ensure high overall operation efficiency of the system.

A basic planning algorithm is to obtain information about the occupancy of the fork lift truck and space on the forward route from the dispatch control system when an automated guided vehicle 200 has reached the edge of the upcoming fork lift truck 12, then analyze: if the automated guided vehicle passing space 112 and the buffer space 113 across from the headstack 12 can allow the vehicle to enter, then the calculation continues if the required time period has an intersection with the time period that the headstack 300 has passed through the headstack space if it now passes through the headstack 12, and proceeds if there is no intersection, otherwise the algorithm is run again after waiting for a period of time. The algorithm requires that the fork lift truck 300 issue its path planning information to the dispatch control system in advance for the next few seconds. Since the time required to automatically guide the cart 200 through the overhead roadway 12 is only a few seconds, and the period of time that the overhead cart 300 does not occupy and pass through the location is relatively long, the cart has more opportunities to pass through the roadway, and the overall system can achieve higher operating efficiency.

After the automated guided vehicle 200 enters the opposite automated guided vehicle pass space 112, a next step is selected based on whether it is carrying the normalized container and the occupancy of the front buffer space. For example, if the normalized container 400 to be shipped already exists in the front cache space 113 and the cart is empty, the cart will take the container away; if the cart itself carries a container, the cart will first place the container itself in the current buffer space 113 and then advance one cell, jack up the normalized container 400 of the previous cell and transport it to the next location.

A feature of this embodiment is that the scheduling algorithm is relatively simple and does not require too many column lanes 32 to be provided. The method is particularly suitable for occasions with fewer rows and longer shelf length of each row in the warehouse.

Example 3:

fig. 9 is a schematic diagram of the overall layout of the article sorting system and the automatic guiding trolley in the row direction in the trolley-specific lane and the column direction under the shelf according to embodiment 3 of the present invention. This embodiment generally employs the same fixed structural support as embodiment 2 as shown in fig. 7.

Unlike embodiment 2, this embodiment adds several trolley specific row lanes 21 between two sets of pallet lane combinations 13. In fig. 8, a lane 21 is illustrated for adding a dedicated row of carts, and the carts 200 are automatically guided to enter the lane from one end in sequence, turn in place after reaching a given rack row, and then enter the corresponding row channel 33. The counter-clockwise and clockwise arrows on a portion of the cart in the figure indicate that the cart is rotating in this position so that it is oriented toward the column channel 33 aligned with this position so that access to the buffer space 113 below the shelf 100 is possible. In particular, the use of multiple adjacent trolley-specific roadways 21 may allow for automatic guided trolley switching to other trolley-specific roadways, thereby making it easier to find shorter travel paths.

The benefit of this embodiment is that, although the space for placing shelves at one point is reduced, the length of the column channels 33 of the automatic guided vehicles 200 is reduced compared to embodiment 2, the time and the number of times that the automatic guided vehicles pass through the stacking roadway 12 are reduced, and the turnover speed of the automatic guided vehicles 200 is increased, thereby achieving higher running efficiency.

Example 4:

fig. 10 is a schematic diagram of the overall layout of the article sorting system and the principle of the automatic guiding trolley under the shelf in the row direction and the column direction according to the embodiment 4 of the present invention. This embodiment generally employs a fixed structural support as shown in fig. 7 a.

As shown in fig. 10, at the position where the broken lines intersect in the figure, the automatic guidance cart 200 can select switching between the row direction and the column direction, including switching between the cart-specific row lane 21 and the column lane 33, and switching between the column lane 33 and the row lane 23. Blockage can be reduced and trolley turnaround time can be shortened through route switching. Switching the travel direction is not a problem for the automated guided vehicle, since the automated guided vehicle 200 can be made small enough in size to complete the turning in the automated guided vehicle passing space 112, and in addition, switching of the standardized container 400 between the row-direction translation and the column-direction translation is also permitted in the buffer space 113 in the lane support 110, as long as the standardized container 400 is ensured to always maintain a certain safety distance from the lane support 110.

For example, the automatic guided vehicle 200 is driven by a differential gear train. The equivalent diameter of the cart 200 is smaller than the short side dimension of the aisle support frame 110, and when the cart 200 travels to the center position of the aisle support frame 110, the cart 200 can be rotated in situ without motion interference. The automated guided vehicle 200 carrying the unitized container 400 accomplishes the switching of travel direction between both row and column directions by performing a series of actions including landing the unitized container on a support, turning the vehicle 90 ° in place, and jacking the unitized container.

For another example, the automated guided vehicle 200 employs a drive train that can keep the vehicle body stationary while the advancing direction is switched between the row direction and the column direction, including an omni-directional train, and the like in a known manner. For example, an omnidirectional wheel system consisting of the Meyer wheels is adopted, when the trolley runs to the central position of the channel support frame, the direction of the trolley body is unchanged, and the running direction is switched between the running direction and the column direction by adjusting the rotating speed of each Meyer wheel.

For another example, two sets of independent drive wheels mounted at an included angle of 90 ° are employed, one set of drive wheels being off the ground when lowered into contact with the ground; for another example, a drive train is provided comprising differential trains with vertical axes of rotation, each differential train being connected to the upper vehicle body by bearings coaxial with its vertical axes of rotation. When the two wheels of each differential gear train rotate reversely at the same speed, the differential wheels change the direction and do not generate horizontal thrust and torsion moment on the vehicle body, so that the direction and the position of the vehicle body are not changed, and the differential wheels are switched between the row direction and the column direction after the differential wheels finish 90-degree steering.

This embodiment is in its very general form the three previous embodiments, allowing the automated guided vehicle to choose among all paths that can be travelled, giving the dispatch control system the maximum search space. In fact, the automatic guided vehicle can also travel in the driving lane, as long as a certain safety distance is kept from the piling car, but the related scheduling algorithm is more tedious. These scheduling algorithms are essentially time-division space-using scheduling methods, so we will introduce a time-division space-using method used in the present invention after embodiment 5. For convenience of explanation of the method, a discretized space unit is introduced in fig. 10: and a cell. The main types of cells include: a first type of cell 70a corresponding to the intersection of a row lane with a column lane, a second type of cell 70b corresponding to the intersection of a stacked row lane with a column lane, a third type of cell 70c corresponding to the intersection of a trolley specific row lane with a column lane, and a fourth type of cell 70d corresponding to the cell corresponding to the intersection of a general row lane with a column lane; the projection of the unit cell on the ground is rectangular, wherein the point is positioned at the intersection point of the row axis and the column axis, one side is the width of the column channel, and the other side is the width of the row channel or the row roadway. The concept of a cell can be applied to embodiments lacking column channels and lacking row channels, as it can be assumed that these embodiments also have column channels or row channels, only some of the channels are forbidden to pass.

Example 5:

in embodiments 1-4, the combination of support 111 and unitized container 400 may be replaced with a movable bracket 116 with support legs, with the movable bracket 116 providing a buffer space for the items. The use of the movable carriage 116 is primarily directed to some relatively specific user needs, such as: the storage rack is too high, the channel supporting frame is inconvenient to be added, the supporting piece is difficult to be added on the upright post of the existing storage rack, or the storage basket or the pallet is not required to be used for containing articles so as to compress the layer height of the storage rack, and the characteristics that the movable bracket can be parked at any time are utilized.

One of the simplest structures of the movable bracket 116 is a four-legged quadrilateral table as shown in fig. 11, but the length, width and height dimensions are smaller than the length, width and height of the inner space of the channel support frame, and the height is larger than the height of the automatic guiding trolley so that the trolley can submerge below, a pallet groove form is generally adopted above the table plate, the fork of the piling trolley can conveniently put down and draw out the articles, the lower surface of the table plate is provided with a lifted matching component, and the lifting platform 210 of the automatic guiding trolley can form separable matching with the matching component, and the working modes of the matching component include pin hole matching, electromagnet adsorption, matching based on anti-skid pads or velcro stickers and the like. In order to allow the movable carriage to rest and maintain a more stable position on the ground, a pair of engagement members are also usually mounted between the table support legs and the ground, for example, by engaging with pin holes machined in the bottom surface of the table support legs and conical projections mounted on the ground.

Because no additional standardized containers are used, the stacker 300 may place items directly on the movable pallet 116 after they are removed from the shelves. However, in order to keep the stacker 300 always having the free movable carriers 116 for placing articles, a plurality of free movable carriers are usually required to be parked under the shelf as ready-to-use article buffer spaces, so that many movable carriers are encountered when the trolley is autonomously guided to pass through the support frame passage with the movable carriers, and blockage is likely to occur. Automatic guided vehicles therefore typically need to choose a path plan according to circumstances, mainly comprising four path plans: the first path planning is to make the trolley travel in the travel channel 23 by first setting down the mobile carrier carried by itself and then removing the mobile carrier in front; the second path planning is that the trolley enters the stacking roadway 12 with the movable bracket, then runs along the stacking roadway 12 and finally enters the column roadway 32, and needs to coordinate with the path planning of the stacking trolley to avoid collision with the stacking trolley; the third path planning is that the trolley passes through the stacking roadway 12 to enter the lower part of another goods shelf with a movable bracket; the fourth path planning is to use a trolley specific roadway 21 or a general roadway 22 beside the shelf. The fourth route is shortest, but a corresponding row roadway needs to be reserved, so that the effective storage area of the warehouse is reduced, and when the warehouse is taken out, the movable support 111 in the buffer blank is lifted by the automatic guiding trolley 200 and moves to the row roadway outside the goods shelf roadway combination along the column direction; during warehouse entry, the automatic guiding trolley 200 sends the movable support 111 to the buffer blank from the row lane outside the shelf lane combination. The main difference between this embodiment and patent EP3170773 is that the racks are connected laterally in rack rows, the aisle supports below the rack rows provide row and column aisles for the automated guided vehicles carrying the movable carriages, so that the automated guided vehicles can access the racks along the row aisles or along the column aisles, and can also share the space of the stacking aisles with the stacking apparatus.

This embodiment is simple in structure and easy to implement, but occupies a large area, so it is generally combined with other embodiments.

Remarks description

Still further remarks with respect to examples 1-5 are as follows:

in the top view of the unmanned warehouse system of embodiments 1-5, the traveling direction of the automatic guiding trolley 200 is depicted as traveling in one direction, but in practice the trolley can travel in both directions, mainly for forward travel, because in practical deployment, only a sensor such as a laser radar is installed in front of the trolley for cost saving, and the forward travel can achieve better active obstacle avoidance. However, since the trolley has better accurate positioning capability, the backward running is not problematic, and the adoption of the bidirectional running can allow the automatic guiding trolley to better plan a route, such as turning the normalized container 400 between adjacent buffer spaces, so as to improve the system efficiency.

In embodiments 1-5, the stacker is not limited to a wheeled stacker, but may be other movable stacker equipment, for example, may be replaced by an inverted stacker that travels through a rail mounted directly above the tunnel, the rail being connected to the top of the pallet on both sides of the tunnel through a metal structural member, or suspended below the ceiling of the tunnel through a metal rod. The various embodiments listed above may be implemented in combination with each other without contradiction, and a person skilled in the art may combine technical features of different embodiments with reference to the figures and the explanation of the embodiments above.

Basic flow of warehouse-in and warehouse-out method

Examples 1-5 employ the basic flow diagrams of the warehouse entry method shown in fig. 12, 13 and 14. Fig. 12 is a basic workflow of a management terminal, fig. 13 is a basic workflow of a stacker, and fig. 14 is a basic workflow of an automatic guided vehicle. The warehouse-in and warehouse-out method provided by the invention adopts the working principle of using space in a time-sharing way. With different spatial granularity, the details of the access method may vary, and generally, greater efficiency may be achieved by using smaller spatial granularity, e.g., allowing two devices to pass one cell in turn with smaller distances. However, for ease of understanding, we will describe the cells of fig. 10 of example 4 as spatial granularity, and assume that each cell allows only one device to be used at a time.

In S602, the management terminal respectively transmits a carrying instruction to a plurality of specified piling devices and a plurality of automatic guiding trolleys according to actual needs; in S604, the management terminal receives a space use application submitted by an automatic guiding trolley and a stacking device in a warehouse; then in S606, the management terminal performs interference analysis with the unit cell as a unit, where common interference scenarios include a situation where the stacking device and the automatic guiding trolley all want to enter the channel support frame, a situation where the automatic guiding trolley wants to temporarily enter the stacking roadway, a situation where different automatic guiding trolleys want to enter the same unit cell, and so on; in S608, the management terminal issues a corresponding instruction to the corresponding device according to the result of the interference analysis, and mainly includes acknowledgement information, rejection information and a bit-moving instruction, the device receiving the acknowledgement information can enter the corresponding cell, and the device receiving the rejection information waits for a certain time and applies again; at S610, the management terminal updates the cell occupation information and the predetermined information. Since S604 is typically performed asynchronously, it may be assumed that the management terminal runs S606 every 100ms, and performs interference analysis on all the space usage applications received in the previous 100ms period. When multiple devices apply for the usage rights of a cell, a rule of first-come or high-level priority is generally adopted, if a cell is occupied or reserved by a device or an object, the device or the object is not reassigned until the device or the object leaves and submits a signal for releasing the space, but in some cases, the management terminal can also send a command to the corresponding device to leave the device or send a move command to an automatic guiding trolley to move the object. In some cases, the space usage application submitted by the mobile device needs to include a set of connected cells, for example, when the automatic guided vehicle passes through the stacking roadway, the second type of cell 70b on the stacking roadway and the first type of cell 70a opposite to the stacking roadway need to be predetermined at the same time, and in S608, the management terminal sends a confirmation message to the automatic guided vehicle only if there is no interference between the two cells.

At S702, the stacking apparatus waits to receive a handling instruction from the management terminal, and the stacking apparatus receives a handling instruction from the management terminal, including a stacking start position and a stacking end position of the target article, the normalized container or the normal article, and information of the stacking start position and the stacking end position includes a position of the rack in the row lane and a position of the target article placed on the rack and the lane support frame. The stacking device automatically advances, a space use application entering n front cells is submitted to a management terminal at S704, n is an integer larger than 0, after the management terminal confirms at S706, n cells are moved forwards at S708, the advancing direction is switched according to the requirement, the height of a lifting platform is adjusted, the switching advancing direction is switched between the row direction and the column direction, S704-S708 is repeated until S710 is positioned to a goods shelf at the stacking starting point position and aligned, and a grabbing component is aligned with a target object placed on the shelf or a channel support frame through the action of the lifting platform; determining whether the grabbing operation needs to extend into the channel support frame at S712, and if not, executing S720, including placing the container or article on the shelf at the end of the warehouse entry instruction, and grabbing the container or article from the shelf at the start of the warehouse exit instruction; if the grabbing operation needs to be extended into the channel support frame, a space use application for entering the channel support frame is submitted to the management terminal at S730, and after confirmation of the channel support frame is made by the management terminal at S732, S734 is executed, which includes extending the grabbing component into the channel support frame at the start point of the warehouse entry instruction, grabbing the container from the support member or grabbing the article from the movable bracket, and extending the grabbing component into the channel support frame at the end point of the warehouse exit instruction, and placing the container onto the support member or placing the article on the movable bracket. Then, in S740, it is determined whether the current designated position is a start position or an end position, if the current designated position is the start position, it is still necessary to start from S704 again, automatically travel to the stack end position, if the current designated position is the end position, it is indicated that the transfer instruction is completed, and the stack device continues to execute the next transfer instruction, or enters a standby state to wait for the transfer instruction.

In S802, the automatic guiding trolley waits to receive a carrying instruction from the management terminal, where the type of the carrying instruction at least includes a warehouse-out instruction and a warehouse-in instruction, and generally includes a move instruction, that is, move a normalized container or a movable bracket in a channel support frame, reduce the blockage of a row channel or a column channel, improve the channel utilization rate, and the instruction content includes a transport start position and a transport end position where a target object is located, and an optional intermediate path; the transport start position and the transport end position are the positions of a certain channel supporting frame or the positions outside the goods shelf; the empty automatic guiding trolley which receives the delivery carrying instruction automatically advances, submits a space use application which enters n front cells to the management terminal at S804, wherein n is an integer which is more than 0 and is usually 1 or 2, after the management terminal confirms at S806, the management terminal advances along a given row channel, a column channel, a row roadway or a column roadway at S808, the n cells are moved forwards, and the advancing direction is switched according to the requirement, wherein the switching advancing direction refers to switching between the row direction and the column direction; by repeating S804-S808 until S810 is positioned to the designated position and performing S812 actions, at which time if it is at the start of the out-of-stock instruction or the start of the in-stock instruction, i.e., the position of the automated guided vehicle is below the article parked in the channel support at the start of the transportation, the automated guided vehicle lifting and lifting portion interfaces with the lifted portion of the standardized container or movable carriage, and the automated guided vehicle lifting and lifting portion, at which time if it is at the end of the in-stock instruction or the end of the in-stock instruction, the automated guided vehicle lifting and lifting portion, the standardized container is parked on the support of the channel support, or the movable carriage is parked on the ground, and if it is at the end of the out-of-stock instruction or the start of the in-stock instruction, typically at the sorting workstation, the automated guided vehicle performs the related actions according to the requirements of the sorting workstation; if the current designated position is the start position or the end position, the method still needs to start from S804 again and automatically travel to the transfer end position if the current designated position is the start position or the end position, if the current designated position is the end position, the method indicates that the transfer instruction is completed, and the automatic guided vehicle continues to execute the next transfer instruction, or enters a standby state to wait for the transfer instruction, or returns to the designated area. Generally, the automatic guiding trolley for executing the move instruction is an empty trolley, but the loaded article can also be stopped by the trolley for carrying the article, then the move instruction is executed, then the article stopped before is lifted again and the original task is continuously executed.

It should be noted that the above-mentioned embodiments are only preferred embodiments of the present invention, and are not intended to limit the present invention, and any modifications, equivalent substitutions, improvements, etc. within the spirit and principle of the present invention should be included in the protection scope of the present invention.

Claims

1. An unmanned warehouse system warehouse-in and warehouse-out method, which uses an unmanned warehouse system, wherein the unmanned warehouse system realizes that articles placed on a goods shelf are taken out and transported to a sorting place or the articles are transported from the sorting place to the goods shelf and stored on the goods shelf, and comprises the following steps: a plurality of shelves, the front of which can take and put articles; at least one movable carriage for buffering the article; at least one automatic guiding trolley for transporting the carriage to a prescribed position; at least one stacking device capable of picking and placing items on the shelves and on the carriages; the management terminal carries out carrying indication on the automatic guiding trolley and the stacking equipment; the unmanned warehouse system is characterized in that; the goods shelves have multilayer shelf and at least one passageway support frame, and passageway support frame sets up in multilayer shelf below and fixes subaerial, and passageway support frame includes a plurality of stands, movable bracket, includes: the storage part is positioned at the upper half part of the bracket and is used for accommodating articles; the supporting parts are distributed at the periphery below the storage part and can be contacted with the ground to support the storage part; the lifted part is used for detachably connecting with the connecting part of the automatic guiding trolley; the overall external dimension of the movable bracket is smaller than the internal space dimension of the channel support frame, and the movable bracket can horizontally move into the channel support frame and move out of the channel support frame, and can stop and keep the position inside the channel support frame through the contact of the support part and the ground; the automatic guiding trolley is provided with a driving part, a control part and a lifting part capable of automatically lifting; the control part makes the automatic guiding trolley travel through the driving part; the control part enables the lifting part to be detachably connected with or separated from the lifted part of the movable bracket through the lifting part, so as to realize the lifting or falling of the movable bracket; the control part enables the stacking device to move between the shelves and align with the front appointed position of the shelf through the driving part, enables the grabbing part to align with the appointed height of the shelf through the lifting platform, and grabs and places articles through the shelf of the grabbing part extending into the shelf and the inside of the channel support frame; the goods shelves are transversely connected to form a plurality of goods shelf rows, the goods shelf rows and the stacking-up row roadways form goods shelf roadway combinations, and the goods shelf roadway combinations are first-type goods shelf roadway combinations or second-type goods shelf roadway combinations; the first type of shelf roadway combination is formed by placing two shelf rows face to face in parallel and leaving a stacking roadway between the two shelf rows, wherein the stacking roadway is used for allowing stacking equipment to pass through, and a grabbing component of the stacking equipment has the capability of grabbing and placing articles from shelves and channel supports of shelves at two sides; the second type of shelf roadway combination is formed by leaving a stacking roadway beside the front side of one shelf row, wherein the stacking roadway is used for allowing stacking equipment to pass through, and a grabbing component of the stacking equipment has the capability of grabbing and placing articles from a shelf and a channel supporting frame of one side shelf; the channel supporting frames below the shelf rows are penetrated on four sides, so that a row channel and a column channel which run below the shelf and pass through the whole shelf roadway combination are provided for an automatic guiding trolley carrying the normalized containers; the warehouse-in and warehouse-out method of the unmanned warehouse system is characterized in that stacking equipment and an automatic guiding trolley in the unmanned warehouse system receive and execute a carrying instruction from a management terminal; the stacking equipment receives a carrying instruction from a management terminal, wherein the carrying instruction comprises a stacking starting point position and a stacking end point position of a target object, the information of the stacking starting point position and the stacking end point position comprises the position of a goods shelf in a roadway and the position of the target object placed on a shelf and a channel support frame, the stacking equipment automatically advances to the goods shelf at the stacking starting point position and aligns, a grabbing component is aligned with the target object placed on the shelf or the channel support frame through the action of a lifting platform, the grabbing component is taken out, then automatically advances to the goods shelf at the stacking end point position again and aligns, the grabbing component is aligned with the stacking end point position through the action of the lifting platform, and the target object is placed on the corresponding shelf or the channel support frame; the automatic guiding trolley receives a carrying instruction from the management terminal, wherein the type of the carrying instruction at least comprises a warehouse-out instruction and a warehouse-in instruction, the instruction content comprises a transport starting point position and a transport end point position of a target object, and the transport starting point position and the transport end point position are positions of a certain channel support frame or positions outside a goods shelf; the empty automatic guiding trolley of the ex-warehouse conveying instruction advances along a designated path, runs below the articles parked in the conveying starting point position channel supporting frame through a row channel, a column channel, a row roadway or a column roadway, then lifts up the lifting part to be in butt joint with the lifted part of the normalized container or the movable bracket, lifts up the normalized container or the movable bracket, and then automatically guides the small vehicle-mounted normalized container or the movable bracket to run to a place outside the goods shelf along the unblocked row channel or the column channel to finish ex-warehouse; the automatic guiding trolley carrying the normalized container or the movable bracket which receives the warehousing and conveying instruction runs from a transport starting point position outside the goods shelf to the vicinity of the goods shelf corresponding to the transport end point position, and runs into the channel support frame corresponding to the transport end point position along the running channel or the column channel, and the lifting part is lowered to enable the normalized container or the movable bracket to be stopped in the channel support frame to finish warehousing; the automatic guiding trolley for completing the carrying instruction waits in place, continues to execute the next received carrying instruction, or returns to the designated area.

2. The method for accessing an unmanned storage system according to claim 1, wherein: the handling instruction type received by the automatic guiding trolley from the management terminal also comprises a bit shifting instruction, which is used for reducing the blockage of the row channels or the column channels and improving the channel utilization rate; the empty automatic guiding trolley of the moving position carrying instruction runs to the position below the articles parked in the channel supporting frames at the starting position of transportation along the given channel or the column channel, then the lifting part is lifted to be in butt joint with the normalized container or the movable bracket by the lifting part, the normalized container or the movable bracket is lifted, then the automatic guiding trolley runs to the important position of transportation in other channel supporting frames along the normalized container or the movable bracket, and the normalized container is parked at a new buffer space to finish the moving position; and the automatic guiding trolley which completes the carrying instruction waits in place, continues to execute the next received carrying instruction, or returns to the appointed area.

3. The method for accessing an unmanned storage system according to claim 2, wherein: the automatic guiding trolley and the stacking equipment use the space of the channel supporting frame in a time-sharing way through a pre-registration mechanism; before the grabbing component of the stacking device needs to extend into the channel support frame, the stacking device submits the position information of the channel support frame which needs to stay and the starting time in advance to the management terminal for applying for space use, and the management terminal is confirmed and then executes the space use application; when the automatic guiding trolley carrying the normalized container or the movable bracket moves along the channel to enter the next channel supporting frame in front, the starting time of the channel supporting frame is submitted to the management terminal in advance for applying the space use, and the management terminal is confirmed and then executed; the management terminal analyzes the submitted space use application according to the channel support frame as a unit, when space interference and time interference do not occur, the management terminal sends confirmation information to the stacking device or the automatic guiding trolley, when interference exists, the management terminal sends the confirmation information to the device with high priority, and the corresponding channel support frame space is marked as a preset occupied state while the confirmation information is sent; the automated guided vehicle and the stacking apparatus submit a release space application upon exiting one of the aisle supports.

4. A method for accessing an unmanned storage system according to claim 3, wherein: the automatic guiding trolley and the stacking equipment time-sharing use stacking roadway space in the shelf roadway combination through a registration mechanism; the stacking equipment submits space use application to the management terminal in advance according to the space position information, the starting time and the ending time of the stacking roadway which need to pass through and stay, and the space use application is executed after being confirmed by the management terminal; before the automatic guiding trolley runs along the column channel to prepare a traveling tunnel passing through the piling car, submitting a space use application to a management terminal in advance by the starting time of the piling traveling tunnel and the space opposite to the piling traveling tunnel; the management terminal analyzes the application of two sections of connected spaces submitted by the automatic guiding trolley respectively, and when space interference and time interference do not occur in the two sections of spaces, the management terminal sends confirmation information to the automatic guiding trolley, and marks the corresponding two sections of spaces as a preset occupied state while sending the confirmation information; the automated guided vehicle and the stacking apparatus submit a free space application upon exiting one of the spaces.