CN113184430A

CN113184430A - Goods-to-human robot picking system, method and device

Info

Publication number: CN113184430A
Application number: CN202110466491.9A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 朱礼君; 王翰林; 刘衡
Original assignee: Hangzhou Yiwu Technology Co ltd
Current assignee: Hangzhou Yiwu Technology Co ltd
Priority date: 2021-04-28
Filing date: 2021-04-28
Publication date: 2021-07-30

Abstract

The invention discloses a goods-to-human robot picking system, method and device based on dynamic assembly of a movable goods shelf, wherein the system comprises: the fixed goods shelf is used for storing goods through the material box placed on the fixed goods shelf; the material box forking robot is used for carrying the corresponding material box between the fixed goods shelf and the movable goods shelf according to the material box which is determined by the system based on the order and needs to be carried; the movable shelf is used for placing the work bin fork and taking the work bin from the fixed shelf fork by the work bin fork taking robot; the goods shelf transporting robot is used for transporting the assembled movable goods shelf to each operation area or temporary storage area of the movable goods shelf in the warehouse; the picking robot is used for transporting the assembled movable goods shelf to the vicinity of a picking station so that a picker can conveniently pick corresponding goods according to system prompts; the order sowing wall is arranged at the picking station and used for placing an order box, and the order box is used for placing goods of corresponding orders picked by the picking workers.

Description

Goods-to-human robot picking system, method and device

Technical Field

The invention relates to the technical field of computers, in particular to a goods-to-human robot picking system, method and device based on a dynamic assembly movable goods shelf.

Background

In the prior art, the core elements of the Kiva (Amazon Robotics/Kiva Systems) solution are the mobile robot and the movable shelves. A plurality of goods grids are arranged on the movable goods shelf, and different goods can be stored. The mobile robot can carry the movable goods shelf by jacking the movable goods shelf.

The key principle of the Kiva solution is to use a mobile robot to lift and carry the movable shelves to the corresponding sorting stations. Because there are multiple shelves on one side of a shelf, and there may be different products in the shelves, the system needs to prompt the picking personnel to pick the corresponding products and the number of the products on the shelf. The picker operates the picking process as shown in fig. 1, and the robot then moves the movable shelves to the next picking station or buffer of shelves, in a repeating pattern until the order picking is completely completed.

In the Kiva program, each mobile shelf holds a number of different items. In the process that the movable goods shelf is conveyed to the sorting station by the mobile robot, in addition to the goods required by the order, other goods on the goods shelf are also conveyed to the sorting station together. Therefore, invalid goods transportation occurs during the transportation process of each movable shelf. These inefficient transports result in fewer items that can be picked per rack transport, thus requiring more mobile robots to do the transport work. In addition, in the case where two or more items on a movable shelf are required to be picked at different picking stations, the shelf can only be transported to one picking station and then to the next in a certain order, which may result in waiting between the different picking stations and reduced efficiency.

Another drawback of the Kiva solution is that all the items are stored on the movable shelves. This results in the use of a robot to carry the movable racks to the picking station to complete the picking, with no way to stop the robot automation process for manual completion of the picking. The movable shelves are closely arranged, some stock surfaces are blocked by other shelves, and the goods cannot be picked manually. Therefore, under such a scheme, if the automation equipment fails or the condition of sudden increase of the traffic volume cannot be met, the system cannot be switched to a manual operation mode.

In addition, in the Kiva scheme, because the shelves are movable, the high-level shelves cannot be used, which reduces the storage efficiency, requires more space for storage, and increases the storage expense.

Disclosure of Invention

The invention aims to provide a goods-to-human robot picking system, a goods-to-human robot picking method and a goods-to-human robot picking device based on dynamic assembly of a movable goods shelf, and aims to solve the problems in the prior art.

The invention provides a goods-to-human robot picking system based on dynamic assembly of a movable goods shelf, which comprises:

the fixed goods shelves are arranged in the fixed goods shelf area and used for storing goods through the bins placed on the fixed goods shelves, wherein each bin is provided with a unique bin identification code, and each fixed goods shelf and the goods space on the fixed goods shelf are also respectively provided with a unique fixed goods shelf identification code and a unique fixed goods space identification code;

the material box forking robot is used for carrying the corresponding material box between the fixed goods shelf and the movable goods shelf according to the material box which is determined by the system based on the order and needs to be carried, so that the dynamic assembly and disassembly of the movable goods shelf are completed;

the movable goods shelf is arranged in the temporary storage area of the movable goods shelf and used for placing the work bin fork taking robot to take the work bin from the fixed goods shelf fork, wherein the movable goods shelf and the goods space on the movable goods shelf are respectively provided with a unique movable goods shelf identification code and a unique movable goods space identification code;

the goods shelf transporting robot is used for transporting the assembled movable goods shelf to each operation area or temporary storage area of the movable goods shelf in the warehouse;

the picking robot is used for transporting the assembled movable goods shelf to the vicinity of a picking station so that a picker can conveniently pick corresponding goods according to system prompts;

the order sowing wall is arranged at the picking station and used for placing an order box, and the order box is used for placing goods of corresponding orders picked by the picking workers.

The invention provides a goods-to-human robot picking method, which is based on the goods-to-human robot picking system dynamically assembled on a movable goods shelf, and specifically comprises the following steps:

analyzing needed goods according to orders needing to be processed on the current day, determining a material box for placing the goods, generating goods taking information to a material box forking robot, so that the material box forking robot can fork the corresponding material box from the fixed goods shelf and place the material box on the movable goods shelf, and recording a movable goods shelf identification code and a corresponding goods identification code of the movable goods shelf where the forked material box is placed;

under the condition that the movable goods shelf is judged to be full, no more bins need to be carried, or an emergency order processing flow is triggered, controlling a goods shelf carrying robot to carry the movable goods shelf away from a fixed goods shelf area and placing the movable goods shelf to a picking workstation for direct picking or a temporary storage area of the movable goods shelf;

when goods on a movable goods shelf of the movable goods shelf temporary storage area need to be picked, controlling a goods shelf handling robot to carry the movable goods shelf to a picking work station for picking;

after the picking operation is finished, analyzing the order goods demand in a period of time in the future, and controlling a shelf handling robot to carry the movable shelf back to the fixed shelf area according to the analysis result, or controlling the shelf handling robot to carry the movable shelf back to the temporary storage area of the movable shelf for temporary storage;

and for the order which is selected completely, the order is conveyed to the packing warehouse-out area through controlling the conveying device, or the movable goods shelf only provided with the order box is conveyed to the packing warehouse-out area through controlling the goods shelf conveying robot so as to carry out quality inspection, packing and warehouse-out operations.

The embodiment of the invention also provides a goods-to-human robot picking device based on the dynamic assembly movable goods shelf, which comprises: a memory, a processor and a computer program stored on the memory and executable on the processor, the computer program, when executed by the processor, implementing the steps of the above-described goods-to-human robotic picking method.

The embodiment of the invention also provides a computer-readable storage medium, wherein an implementation program for information transmission is stored on the computer-readable storage medium, and the implementation program is used for implementing the steps of the goods-to-human robot picking method when being executed by a processor.

By adopting the embodiment of the invention, the carrying efficiency is greatly improved, the requirement on the number of robots can be reduced, the traffic jam condition in the bin is reduced, and the overall operation efficiency is improved. The operation time of the robot is prolonged, the utilization rate of the robot is improved, and meanwhile, the order processing process is accelerated.

The foregoing description is only an overview of the technical solutions of the present invention, and the embodiments of the present invention are described below in order to make the technical means of the present invention more clearly understood and to make the above and other objects, features, and advantages of the present invention more clearly understandable.

Drawings

In order to more clearly illustrate the embodiments of the present invention or the technical solutions in the prior art, the drawings used in the description of the embodiments or the prior art will be briefly described below, and it is obvious that the drawings in the following description are some embodiments of the present invention, and other drawings can be obtained by those skilled in the art without creative efforts.

FIG. 1 is a flow chart of a Kiva scenario process in the prior art;

FIG. 2 is a first schematic diagram of a goods-to-human robotic picking system based on dynamically assembled movable shelves according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a second schematic diagram of a goods-to-human robotic picking system based on dynamically assembled movable shelves in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of a rack handling robot handling a movable rack in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of a goods-to-human robotic picking method of an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 6 is a schematic diagram of a goods-to-human robotic picking apparatus based on dynamically assembled movable shelves in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed Description

The technical solutions of the present invention will be described clearly and completely with reference to the following embodiments, and it should be understood that the described embodiments are some, but not all, embodiments of the present invention. All other embodiments, which can be derived by a person skilled in the art from the embodiments given herein without making any creative effort, shall fall within the protection scope of the present invention.

In the description of the present invention, it is to be understood that the terms "center", "longitudinal", "lateral", "length", "width", "thickness", "upper", "lower", "front", "rear", "left", "right", "vertical", "horizontal", "top", "bottom", "inner", "outer", "clockwise", "counterclockwise", and the like, indicate orientations and positional relationships based on those shown in the drawings, and are used only for convenience of description and simplicity of description, and do not indicate or imply that the device or element being referred to must have a particular orientation, be constructed and operated in a particular orientation, and thus, should not be considered as limiting the present invention.

Furthermore, the terms "first", "second" and "first" are used for descriptive purposes only and are not to be construed as indicating or implying relative importance or implicitly indicating the number of technical features indicated. Thus, features defined as "first", "second", may explicitly or implicitly include one or more of the described features. In the description of the present invention, "a plurality" means two or more unless specifically defined otherwise. Furthermore, the terms "mounted," "connected," and "connected" are to be construed broadly and may, for example, be fixedly connected, detachably connected, or integrally connected; can be mechanically or electrically connected; they may be connected directly or indirectly through intervening media, or they may be interconnected between two elements. The specific meanings of the above terms in the present invention can be understood in specific cases to those skilled in the art.

System embodiment

According to an embodiment of the present invention, a goods-to-human robot picking system based on dynamically assembled movable shelves is provided, fig. 2 and 3 are schematic diagrams of the goods-to-human robot picking system based on dynamically assembled movable shelves according to an embodiment of the present invention, and as shown in fig. 2 and 3, the goods-to-human robot picking system based on dynamically assembled movable shelves according to an embodiment of the present invention specifically includes:

the fixed shelves are arranged in the fixed shelf area 101 and used for storing goods through the bins 105 placed on the fixed shelves, wherein each bin 105 is provided with a unique bin identification code, and each fixed shelf and the goods position on the fixed shelf are respectively provided with a unique fixed shelf identification code and a unique fixed goods position identification code;

the material box forking robot 104 is used for carrying the corresponding material box between the fixed shelf and the movable shelf according to the material box which is determined by the system based on the order and needs to be carried, and completing the dynamic assembly and disassembly of the movable shelf;

the movable shelf 107 is arranged in the movable shelf temporary storage area 102 and is used for placing the material box forking robot to fetch the material box from the fixed shelf fork, wherein the movable shelf and the goods position on the movable shelf are respectively provided with a unique movable shelf identification code and a unique movable goods position identification code;

a rack transfer robot 109 for transferring the assembled movable racks to each operation area or a temporary storage area of the movable racks in the warehouse; the assembled movable goods shelf is transported to the vicinity of a picking station, so that a picking worker can conveniently pick corresponding goods according to system prompts;

and an order sowing wall 113 disposed at the picking station for placing order boxes for placing goods of corresponding orders picked by the picker.

The above technical solutions of the embodiments of the present invention are described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

The embodiment of the invention is mainly applied to the field of warehouse logistics and comprises the processes of replenishment, shelving, picking, inventory, quality inspection, packaging, delivery and the like in a warehouse. One common solution for automation and intelligence of these processes is a robot-to-person solution: the movable goods shelf is transported to a work station through a robot, and then workers complete the operations of picking, putting on the shelf, checking and the like. Such an automated scheme can greatly improve the operating efficiency of the warehouse, because workers do not need to walk and find goods in the warehouse, and all time is spent on effective operation.

The embodiment of the invention further improves the efficiency of the goods to the human robot picking system through the dynamically assembled movable goods shelf, and overcomes the defect of the goods to the human robot picking system. In addition, the dynamically assembled movable shelf can also realize inventory sorting operation with finer granularity, the robot can automatically redistribute the inventory of the warehouse in the idle time period of the warehouse and transfer the inventory required in a future time period to the movable shelf in advance, so that the order picking operation can be started soon after the working time of workers begins, and the time for taking orders out of the warehouse is saved. The advantages enable the work flow efficiency of the whole system to be higher, the number of required robots is smaller, and the efficiency of the whole system can be improved while the cost is reduced.

In the embodiment of the invention, the commodities in the warehouse are stored in the bin, the bin is stored on the fixed shelf, and the shelf can be a high-level shelf, so that the storage space is saved. The work bin fork-taking robot is responsible for taking down work bins from the goods shelves and placing the work bins on the movable goods shelves, and then the carrying robot can carry the dynamically assembled movable goods shelves to all required places of the warehouse so as to complete corresponding business operations.

In embodiments of the present invention, the structure of the warehouse may be divided into several different zones: a fixed goods shelf area, a movable goods shelf temporary storage area, a work station area and a packing and unloading area. The fixed goods shelf area is mainly responsible for storing goods; the temporary storage area of the movable goods shelves is mainly used for storing the movable goods shelves, and the movable goods shelves can store the goods required by the order form, so that the temporary storage area is mainly used for caching the goods required by the order form; the workstation area is mainly responsible for picking orders; the packing delivery area is mainly responsible for quality inspection, packing and delivery of orders.

As shown in fig. 2, the shelf arrangement and placement of the fixed shelf area 101 is similar to a manually operated warehouse, where the shelves are fixed to the ground, the items are stored in bins 105, and a bin may store a single or multiple items. Each bin has a uniquely identifying code, and each shelf and bin also has a uniquely identifying code. The code of the shelf, the corresponding position, the code of the goods position, the code of the corresponding material box, the bar code and the number of the goods in the material box are stored in a management system. The mobile shelf buffer 102 is mainly used for storing the mobile shelves 107, and in this area, a plurality of mobile shelf buffer locations 108 are provided, each of which has a unique code identifier. Each movable shelf 107 also has a unique identification code, and each of the bays in the shelf also has a unique identification code. The management system will record the binding of the bin 105 to the level of the movable shelf 107 and also the binding of the movable shelf 107 to the staging area 108. In a warehouse there will be a dedicated mobile shelf buffer 102 and a part of the buffer locations 108 will be distributed in the lanes of the fixed shelf area 101. The bin forking robot 104 is responsible for carrying the bins 105 between the fixed shelves and the movable shelves, so as to dynamically assemble the movable shelves. The transfer robot 109 is responsible for transferring the assembled movable racks to the respective work and storage areas in the warehouse

Fig. 3 shows a workstation area 103, the workstation area 103 being primarily used for order picking. There is a picker or robotic arm at each station responsible for picking items. The robot 109 will carry the assembled movable shelves to the vicinity of the picking station 110, and the picker 111 will pick the corresponding items according to the system prompts and place the items into the corresponding order boxes 114 on the corresponding order seeding wall 113 according to the system prompts. The order sowing wall can be fixed or movable. In the case of moving, when one side of the sowing and picking is finished, the robot 109 moves the picking station to the packing and delivery area.

The following is an important process of order picking, replenishment, inventory, and the like of the warehouse according to the embodiment of the present invention. And the special technical points of the invention are emphatically explained, so that the efficiency of the operation processes of the important warehouses can be greatly improved.

The following describes the sorting process of the embodiment of the present invention: firstly, the system can analyze which commodities are needed according to orders needing to be processed on the current day, and find a corresponding commodity-containing bin. The bin fork robot will then fork the corresponding desired bin off the fixed shelf and onto the movable shelf, and the system will record the movable shelf on which the bin is placed and the corresponding item ID thereon. When the movable shelf is full, or no more bins are needed to be transported, or the emergency order handling process is triggered, the shelf transport robot will transport the movable shelf away from the fixed shelf area. For the emergency order processing flow, the shelf transporting robot can move the movable shelf to a picking work station for directly picking; for other order processing procedures, the shelf transfer robot will transfer the movable shelf to the temporary storage area of the movable shelf to prepare for the goods required by the order in a future period of time. For the bin stored in the temporary storage area of the movable goods shelf, when the goods in the bin need to be picked, the goods shelf carrying robot can carry the movable goods shelf to the picking station to manually pick the corresponding goods. After the picking operation is finished, the system analyzes the order commodity demand in a period of time in the future, and if the movable shelf still has commodities required by the order, the movable shelf is placed in the temporary storage area of the movable shelf for temporary storage; if the system analyzes the goods that are not needed for an order on the movable shelf for a long period of time in the future, the movable shelf can be transported back to the fixed shelf area, and then the bin forking robot forks the bin on the movable shelf and places the bin back on the storage location of the fixed shelf. For orders that are picked, the order picker may directly place the order box on a conveyor for delivery to the packing out area. In another design, the order boxes are also placed on the movable shelves, and after all orders on the entire movable shelves are completed, the system will schedule the shelf transfer robot to transfer the completed orders to the packing and out-warehouse area, and then will manually take the sorted orders out and perform quality inspection, packing and out-warehouse operations.

Dynamic assembly process of the movable shelf: an empty movable shelf is placed in the movable shelf temporary storage position in the fixed shelf area. The bin fork robot (104) will fork the required bins from the fixed shelves and then place them on the movable shelves as instructed by the system. The goods position stored in the material box is informed to the material box forking robot by the dispatching system. The bin forking robot takes the bin out of the goods shelf through the forking device, walks to the side of the movable goods shelf, and then puts the bin into a corresponding goods position on the movable goods shelf. The material box fork taking device can take and place the material box in lifting, clamping and holding modes and the like.

Carrying of the movable goods shelf: for the assembled movable shelves, the shelf transfer robot (109) may transfer the movable shelves to a temporary storage area of the movable shelves, or may directly transfer the movable shelves to a sorting station for manual sorting. The rack handling robot may handle the movable rack by jacking the rack, dragging, etc. (as shown in fig. 4). After the movable goods shelf temporary storage area is carried, the movable goods shelf can be put down at the temporary storage position.

Picking of the order: the goods shelf carrying robot carries the movable goods shelf where the goods required by the order are located to the corresponding picking station, a picking worker picks the corresponding goods according to the system prompt and places the goods into the corresponding order box according to the system prompt. If all of the desired items on a movable shelf have been picked, the system issues instructions to the shelf transfer robot to move the movable shelf away from the picking station. The system determines the end point of the movable shelf based on the product stored on the movable shelf, and if the product on the shelf is to be used to fill another order within a future period of time, the shelf can be returned to the movable shelf buffer. Otherwise, the shelf is moved back to the fixed shelf area, and the work bin fork-taking robot places the work bin on the movable shelf back to the fixed shelf.

The process that the bin is put back on the fixed shelf: the goods shelf carrying robot carries the movable goods shelf with the material box to the temporary storage position of the movable goods shelf in the fixed goods shelf area. The bin forking robot can fork the corresponding bin according to the system instruction and put the bin back to the storage position corresponding to the fixed shelf. The storage location is also recommended by the system calculation, which takes into account the order demand for the items in the bin over time, the degree of association of the bin items with items on nearby shelves, and so forth.

Handling process of picking a completed order: in this step, the order box is also placed on the movable shelf. When all orders on a movable shelf are picked, the system dispatches a shelf transfer robot to move the shelf away from the picking station and deliver the shelf to the packing delivery area. In addition, the system also dispatches another rack handling robot to handle a new movable rack for storing empty order boxes to the picking station for a new round of order picking operation.

The following describes the picking sequence of an embodiment of the present invention, relative to the previous optimization point of the rack-to-person picking sequence. In the picking process, all the commodities stored on the movable goods shelf are required to be picked according to the orders on the day; in the traditional goods shelf-to-person system, because the goods shelves are fixed, a plurality of goods irrelevant to orders can be carried by carrying the movable goods shelves each time, and because the picking process in the invention can greatly improve the carrying efficiency of the movable goods shelves and reduce the demand of the carrying robot. The work bin on the movable goods shelf can be stored and taken by the work bin forking robot before work starts on the same day, so that the dynamic assembly of the movable goods shelf can be completed in advance, the waiting time for order processing can be greatly reduced, and the working time of the robot is fully utilized. In addition, because the movable shelf temporary storage area exists, the movable shelf after the picking is finished can be placed in the area for temporary storage, and the system can dynamically determine which bins on the movable shelf need to be placed back to the fixed shelf area and which can continue to wait in the movable shelf temporary storage area according to the commodity demands of orders in a future period of time. The storage is equivalent to a buffer area for the commodities needed by the order, so that the commodities needed by the order can be rapidly circulated, the demand of the robot is reduced, and the order picking time efficiency is improved. In addition, because the bins and items on the movable shelves are dynamically placed, the system may use algorithms to allocate orders for each picking station to process based on the needs of the orders on the day, and to optimize the allocation strategy of items on different movable shelves based on the items needed for those orders. Through the dynamic algorithm optimization, various commodities can be selected at the sorting station after the movable goods shelf enters the sorting station every time, so that the carrying times of the movable goods shelf can be greatly reduced. The algorithm also optimizes the distribution of items on different movable shelves so that the same movable shelf is not needed by multiple picking stations at the same time, thereby reducing waiting between different picking stations.

The replenishment process according to the embodiment of the present invention will be described below. The restocker needs to put the goods to be restocked into a hopper and record the hopper ID, the goods ID, and the number of pieces of goods in the system by RF, PC, or the like. This process can be done in any area. After the replenishment process is started, the system can dispatch the goods shelf conveying robot to convey the empty movable goods shelf to the replenishment station, and the replenishment worker places the bins in which the goods are placed on the goods positions of the movable goods shelf. The system can prompt the goods position stored in each bin, the restocker can determine the placed goods position according to the actual situation, and the information of binding the bin and the goods position is informed to the system through RF, PC and other equipment. When the goods space of the whole movable goods shelf is full, or under the condition that an emergency order or some other triggering conditions occur, the goods shelf transporting robot transports the movable goods shelf away from the replenishment station. The system will determine the destination of the movable shelf according to the goods on the shelf: a picking station, a temporary storage area of a movable goods shelf, or a fixed goods shelf area.

In the goods supplementing process, the process of transporting the movable goods shelf to the goods supplementing station and the process of transporting the movable goods shelf from the goods supplementing station are similar to the transportation of the movable goods shelf in the picking process.

After the goods shelves handling robot carried portable goods shelves to the replenishment station, the system can indicate the replenishment worker to place the workbin on portable goods shelves to the suggestion corresponds workbin and the relation of binding of goods position. After the worker carries the bin to the movable shelf, the real binding relationship between the bin and the cargo space needs to be recorded through RF, PC and other devices.

Compared with the traditional goods shelf-to-person system, the goods replenishment process provided by the embodiment of the invention has the advantage that the efficiency is greatly improved. In a traditional goods shelf-to-person system, because the goods positions are fixed on the movable goods shelves, the process of putting goods into the goods positions cannot be decoupled from the carrying of the robot, so that the goods supplementing efficiency and the carrying efficiency of the robot are reduced; and the workman also can receive the restriction in physical aspects such as the goods position is little, the high position of placing at the in-process of placing commodity, also can reduce the efficiency of replenishment. In contrast, in the invention, the replenishment worker can operate the process of putting commodities into the bin in any area, and the process is efficient and simple; in the process of interacting with the robot system, the replenishment work only needs to place the material box on the movable goods shelf according to the system prompt, and the operation is simple and time-consuming. Therefore, under the invention, the two processes of putting commodities into the bin and putting commodities on the shelf of the bin can be decoupled, and the utilization rate of the shelf carrying robot is improved while the replenishment efficiency is improved.

The following describes an inventory procedure according to an embodiment of the present invention. The purpose of warehouse inventory is to ensure the financial consistency of the inventory. In this invention, the system dynamically calculates bins that need to be inventoried based on bins that have been picked during the last period of time and transports those bins to corresponding inventory stations. The bins may have been placed on fixed shelves or may have been placed on movable shelves. For bins placed on fixed shelves, the system will issue commands to the bin forking robot to remove the bins from the fixed shelves for placement on the movable shelves. When the bins to be inventoried are placed on the movable shelves, the system dispatches the shelf transfer robot to transfer the movable shelves to the inventory station, and then the system issues instructions directing the inventory workers to inventory. The checking worker can send an instruction according to the system to check the commodities in the corresponding bin, and the checking result is informed to the system through RF, PC and other equipment.

According to the inventory process of the embodiment of the invention, a plurality of bins need to be inventoried simultaneously on the movable goods shelf carried by the goods shelf carrying robot, so that the inventory of various commodities can be completed by carrying once. Compare in traditional goods shelves to people system, greatly promoted the efficiency of the in-process goods shelves transfer robot of checing.

In the embodiment of the invention, the problem of the carrying efficiency of the goods shelves in the robot automatic warehouse is solved. Through the portable goods shelves of developments equipment, let the goods shelves transport more high-efficient, reduce the unnecessary commodity transport. Efficiency through letting goods shelves transport at every turn is higher, can reduce the quantity to the robot demand by a wide margin, also can alleviate on-the-spot robot's traffic situation when reducing the cost, further raises the efficiency. In addition, the movable goods shelves which are dynamically assembled and guided by the system can reduce the mutual waiting among different picking stations and improve the picking efficiency.

The other solves the problem of manual sorting feasibility. Most of the inventory in the embodiment of the invention is arranged on the fixed shelf, and the fixed shelf is arranged to be suitable for being manually selected in a shelf area. Therefore, under the condition that the automation equipment fails or the traffic volume is increased sharply, the whole operation system can be switched to full manual operation. The fixed goods shelf can use a high-level goods shelf, so that the storage efficiency is increased, and the storage cost is reduced.

In summary, in the embodiment of the present invention, a manner of dynamically assembling the movable shelf is adopted to optimize a plurality of processes of picking, replenishment, inventory, and the like in the warehouse, so as to improve the efficiency of the processes, reduce the requirement for robot handling, reduce the cost of the system, and improve the overall robustness of the system.

Method embodiment

According to an embodiment of the present invention, a goods-to-human robot picking method is provided, based on a goods-to-human robot picking system based on dynamically assembling movable shelves in the above system embodiment, fig. 5 is a flowchart of the goods-to-human robot picking method according to the embodiment of the present invention, and as shown in fig. 5, the goods-to-human robot picking method according to the embodiment of the present invention specifically includes:

501, analyzing needed goods according to orders needing to be processed on the current day, determining a material box in which the goods are placed, generating goods taking information to a material box forking robot, so that the material box forking robot can fork the corresponding material box from a fixed goods shelf and place the material box on a movable goods shelf, and recording a movable goods shelf identification code and a corresponding goods identification code of the movable goods shelf in which the forked material box is placed;

step 502, under the condition that the movable shelf is judged to be full, no more bins need to be carried, or the emergency order processing flow is triggered, controlling a shelf carrying robot to carry the movable shelf away from a fixed shelf area and placing the movable shelf in a picking workstation for direct picking or a temporary storage area of the movable shelf;

step 503, when the goods on the movable shelf in the movable shelf temporary storage area need to be picked, controlling a shelf handling robot to carry the movable shelf to a picking workstation for picking;

step 504, after the picking operation is completed, analyzing the order goods demand in a period of time in the future, and controlling the shelf handling robot to carry the movable shelf back to the fixed shelf area according to the analysis result, or controlling the shelf handling robot to carry the movable shelf back to the temporary storage area of the movable shelf for temporary storage;

and 505, conveying the sorted orders to a packing and ex-warehouse area through controlling a conveying device, or conveying the movable goods shelves only provided with the order boxes to the packing and ex-warehouse area through controlling a goods shelf conveying robot so as to perform quality inspection, packing and ex-warehouse operations.

Apparatus embodiment one

An embodiment of the present invention provides a goods-to-human robot picking apparatus based on a dynamically assembled movable shelf, as shown in fig. 6, including: a memory 60, a processor 62 and a computer program stored on the memory 60 and executable on the processor 62, which computer program, when executed by the processor 62, performs the steps as described in the method embodiments.

Device embodiment II

An embodiment of the present invention provides a computer-readable storage medium, on which an implementation program for information transmission is stored, and when executed by a processor 62, the program implements the steps as described in the method embodiment.

The computer-readable storage medium of this embodiment includes, but is not limited to: ROM, RAM, magnetic or optical disks, and the like.

It should be noted that the embodiment of the storage medium in this specification and the embodiment of the service providing method based on a block chain in this specification are based on the same inventive concept, and therefore specific implementation of this embodiment may refer to implementation of the service providing method based on a block chain described above, and repeated parts are not described again.

The foregoing description has been directed to specific embodiments of this disclosure. Other embodiments are within the scope of the following claims. In some cases, the actions or steps recited in the claims may be performed in a different order than in the embodiments and still achieve desirable results. In addition, the processes depicted in the accompanying figures do not necessarily require the particular order shown, or sequential order, to achieve desirable results. In some embodiments, multitasking and parallel processing may also be possible or may be advantageous.

In the 30 s of the 20 th century, improvements in a technology could clearly be distinguished between improvements in hardware (e.g., improvements in circuit structures such as diodes, transistors, switches, etc.) and improvements in software (improvements in process flow). However, as technology advances, many of today's process flow improvements have been seen as direct improvements in hardware circuit architecture. Designers almost always obtain the corresponding hardware circuit structure by programming an improved method flow into the hardware circuit. Thus, it cannot be said that an improvement in the process flow cannot be realized by hardware physical modules. For example, a Programmable Logic Device (PLD), such as a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), is an integrated circuit whose Logic functions are determined by programming the Device by a user. A digital system is "integrated" on a PLD by the designer's own programming without requiring the chip manufacturer to design and fabricate application-specific integrated circuit chips. Furthermore, nowadays, instead of manually making an Integrated Circuit chip, such Programming is often implemented by "logic compiler" software, which is similar to a software compiler used in program development and writing, but the original code before compiling is also written by a specific Programming Language, which is called Hardware Description Language (HDL), and HDL is not only one but many, such as abel (advanced Boolean Expression Language), ahdl (alternate Hardware Description Language), traffic, pl (core universal Programming Language), HDCal (jhdware Description Language), lang, Lola, HDL, laspam, hardward Description Language (vhr Description Language), vhal (Hardware Description Language), and vhigh-Language, which are currently used in most common. It will also be apparent to those skilled in the art that hardware circuitry that implements the logical method flows can be readily obtained by merely slightly programming the method flows into an integrated circuit using the hardware description languages described above.

The controller may be implemented in any suitable manner, for example, the controller may take the form of, for example, a microprocessor or processor and a computer-readable medium storing computer-readable program code (e.g., software or firmware) executable by the (micro) processor, logic gates, switches, an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), a programmable logic controller, and an embedded microcontroller, examples of which include, but are not limited to, the following microcontrollers: ARC 625D, Atmel AT91SAM, Microchip PIC18F26K20, and Silicone Labs C8051F320, the memory controller may also be implemented as part of the control logic for the memory. Those skilled in the art will also appreciate that, in addition to implementing the controller as pure computer readable program code, the same functionality can be implemented by logically programming method steps such that the controller is in the form of logic gates, switches, application specific integrated circuits, programmable logic controllers, embedded microcontrollers and the like. Such a controller may thus be considered a hardware component, and the means included therein for performing the various functions may also be considered as a structure within the hardware component. Or even means for performing the functions may be regarded as being both a software module for performing the method and a structure within a hardware component.

The systems, devices, modules or units illustrated in the above embodiments may be implemented by a computer chip or an entity, or by a product with certain functions. One typical implementation device is a computer. In particular, the computer may be, for example, a personal computer, a laptop computer, a cellular telephone, a camera phone, a smartphone, a personal digital assistant, a media player, a navigation device, an email device, a game console, a tablet computer, a wearable device, or a combination of any of these devices.

For convenience of description, the above devices are described as being divided into various units by function, and are described separately. Of course, the functions of the units may be implemented in the same software and/or hardware or in multiple software and/or hardware when implementing the embodiments of the present description.

One skilled in the art will recognize that one or more embodiments of the present description may be provided as a method, system, or computer program product. Accordingly, one or more embodiments of the present description may take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment or an embodiment combining software and hardware aspects. Furthermore, the description may take the form of a computer program product embodied on one or more computer-usable storage media (including, but not limited to, disk storage, CD-ROM, optical storage, and the like) having computer-usable program code embodied therein.

The description has been presented with reference to flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus (systems), and computer program products according to embodiments of the description. It will be understood that each flow and/or block of the flow diagrams and/or block diagrams, and combinations of flows and/or blocks in the flow diagrams and/or block diagrams, can be implemented by computer program instructions. These computer program instructions may be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, embedded processor, or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computer or other programmable data processing apparatus, create means for implementing the functions specified in the flowchart flow or flows and/or block diagram block or blocks.

These computer program instructions may also be stored in a computer-readable memory that can direct a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readable memory produce an article of manufacture including instruction means which implement the function specified in the flowchart flow or flows and/or block diagram block or blocks.

These computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer or other programmable apparatus to produce a computer implemented process such that the instructions which execute on the computer or other programmable apparatus provide steps for implementing the functions specified in the flowchart flow or flows and/or block diagram block or blocks.

In a typical configuration, a computing device includes one or more processors (CPUs), input/output interfaces, network interfaces, and memory.

The memory may include forms of volatile memory in a computer readable medium, Random Access Memory (RAM) and/or non-volatile memory, such as Read Only Memory (ROM) or flash memory (flash RAM). Memory is an example of a computer-readable medium.

Computer-readable media, including both non-transitory and non-transitory, removable and non-removable media, may implement information storage by any method or technology. The information may be computer readable instructions, data structures, modules of a program, or other data. Examples of computer storage media include, but are not limited to, phase change memory (PRAM), Static Random Access Memory (SRAM), Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), other types of Random Access Memory (RAM), Read Only Memory (ROM), Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory (EEPROM), flash memory or other memory technology, compact disc read only memory (CD-ROM), Digital Versatile Discs (DVD) or other optical storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other non-transmission medium that can be used to store information that can be accessed by a computing device. As defined herein, a computer readable medium does not include a transitory computer readable medium such as a modulated data signal and a carrier wave.

It should also be noted that the terms "comprises," "comprising," or any other variation thereof, are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion, such that a process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises a list of elements does not include only those elements but may include other elements not expressly listed or inherent to such process, method, article, or apparatus. Without further limitation, an element defined by the phrase "comprising an … …" does not exclude the presence of other like elements in a process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises the element.

One or more embodiments of the present description may be described in the general context of computer-executable instructions, such as program modules, being executed by a computer. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, etc. that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. One or more embodiments of the specification may also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network. In a distributed computing environment, program modules may be located in both local and remote computer storage media including memory storage devices.

The embodiments in the present specification are described in a progressive manner, and the same and similar parts among the embodiments are referred to each other, and each embodiment focuses on the differences from the other embodiments. In particular, for the system embodiment, since it is substantially similar to the method embodiment, the description is simple, and for the relevant points, reference may be made to the partial description of the method embodiment.

The above description is only an example of this document and is not intended to limit this document. Various modifications and changes may occur to those skilled in the art from this document. Any modifications, equivalents, improvements, etc. which come within the spirit and principle of the disclosure are intended to be included within the scope of the claims of this document.

Claims

1. A goods-to-human robotic picking system based on dynamically assembled movable shelves, comprising:

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the rack handling robot is further configured to:

and transferring the order sowing wall to a packing and ex-warehouse area, and carrying a new order sowing wall to a picking station.

3. The system of claim 1,

the material box forking robot takes the material box out of the goods shelf through the forking device, wherein the forking device takes and places the material box in a lifting and clamping manner;

the shelf carrying robot carries the movable shelf in a mode of jacking the shelf and dragging.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the movable shelf buffer comprises in particular: special movable goods shelf temporary storage area and movable goods shelf temporary storage area scattered in the fixed goods shelf area roadway.

5. A goods-to-human robot picking method based on the goods-to-human robot picking system based on the dynamic assembly movable shelf of any one of claims 1 to 4, the method specifically comprises the following steps:

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

after a replenishing worker puts goods to be replenished into a box, acquiring a box identification code, a goods identification code and the number of the goods to be replenished, dispatching a goods shelf carrying robot to carry an empty movable goods shelf to a replenishing station, and reminding and/or recording a goods position where the replenishing worker puts the box;

and under the condition that the goods space of the whole movable goods shelf is judged to be full or an emergency order or some other triggering conditions occur, the goods shelf transporting robot is controlled to transport the movable goods shelf away from the goods replenishing station and to place the movable goods shelf in the sorting station, the temporary storage area of the movable goods shelf or the fixed goods shelf area.

7. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

dynamically calculating the bins to be checked according to the sorted bins in the last period of time, controlling a bin forking robot to fork all the bins to be checked to a movable goods shelf, and controlling a goods shelf carrying robot to carry the movable goods shelf in which the bins to be checked are placed to a corresponding checking station;

and issuing an instruction to guide an inventory worker to inventory so that the movable goods shelf can inventory the corresponding goods in the material box according to the issued instruction and acquire an inventory result.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein controlling the rack handling robot to handle the movable rack back to the fixed rack area based on the analysis comprises:

and controlling a shelf carrying robot to carry the movable shelf back to the fixed shelf area according to the analysis result, and controlling a bin forking robot to fork and place the bin on the movable shelf back to the goods position of the fixed shelf according to the order demand of the goods in the bin for a period of time and the association degree of the goods of the bin and the goods on the nearby fixed shelf.

9. A goods-to-human robotic picking device based on dynamically assembled movable shelves, comprising: memory, a processor and a computer program stored on the memory and executable on the processor, the computer program, when executed by the processor, implementing the steps of the goods-to-human robotic picking method of any one of claims 5 to 8.

10. A computer-readable storage medium, characterized in that the computer-readable storage medium has stored thereon a program for implementing the information transfer, which program, when being executed by a processor, implements the steps of the method for goods-to-human robotic picking as claimed in any one of claims 5 to 8.