CN113371383A

CN113371383A - Goods shelf scheduling method, device, equipment, warehousing system and storage medium

Info

Publication number: CN113371383A
Application number: CN202110714984.XA
Authority: CN
Inventors: 艾鑫; 彭逸凡; 喻润方
Original assignee: Shenzhen Kubo Software Co Ltd
Current assignee: Shenzhen Kubo Software Co Ltd
Priority date: 2021-06-25
Filing date: 2021-06-25
Publication date: 2021-09-10
Anticipated expiration: 2041-06-25
Also published as: CN113371383B

Abstract

The embodiment of the disclosure provides a shelf scheduling method, a shelf scheduling device, a shelf scheduling apparatus, a warehousing system and a storage medium, wherein the shelf scheduling method is applied to the warehousing system, the warehousing system comprises a plurality of mobile shelves and at least one roadway, and the shelf scheduling method comprises the following steps: determining a request channel of the robot, wherein the request channel is a channel which is requested by the robot to pass through and occupied by a blocked movable shelf, the number of the request channels is less than or equal to the number of lanes, and the blocked movable shelf is one of the movable shelves; according to the position of the request channel and the position of the at least one roadway, a target moving strategy is generated, so that the movable goods shelf is prevented from moving out of the request channel according to the target moving strategy, the space utilization rate of the warehousing system is improved through the movable goods shelf by the robot passing through the request channel, the walking flexibility of the robot is improved through a dispatching method of the movable goods shelf, and the operation efficiency is improved.

Description

Goods shelf scheduling method, device, equipment, warehousing system and storage medium

Technical Field

The present disclosure relates to the field of smart storage technologies, and in particular, to a shelf scheduling method, device, equipment, storage system, and storage medium.

Background

With the rapid development of the logistics industry, in the field of warehousing systems, automated warehousing systems are widely applied, many warehousing operations carried by people are replaced by automated robots, and in modern warehousing systems, full automation, high efficiency and high density become the development targets of warehousing automation.

The warehousing system usually includes goods shelves and robot, in order to satisfy the operation demand of robot, generally need reserve sufficient space, the tunnel promptly between adjacent goods shelves to the robot can carry out warehousing operation through this tunnel, if get goods, put goods, patrol and examine etc..

However, in the prior art, a fixed and sufficient idle space is reserved between every two shelves, so that the space utilization rate of the warehouse of the warehousing system is low, and the shelves are all fixed shelves, so that the flexibility of the warehousing system is poor.

Disclosure of Invention

The shelf scheduling method, the shelf scheduling device, the shelf scheduling equipment, the storage system and the storage medium are characterized in that the mobile shelves are arranged in the storage system, and the scheduling method of each mobile shelf is formulated in a self-adaptive mode according to the requirements of a robot, so that the space utilization rate and the flexibility of the storage system are improved.

In a first aspect, an embodiment of the present disclosure provides a shelf scheduling method, where the method is applied to a warehousing system, the warehousing system includes a plurality of mobile shelves and at least one lane, the mobile shelves may move along a set direction, and when a distance between adjacent mobile shelves is greater than or equal to a preset width, there is one lane between adjacent mobile shelves, the method includes: determining a request channel of a robot, wherein the request channel is a channel requested to pass by the robot, at least one request channel is occupied by a blocking mobile shelf, the number of the request channels occupied by the blocking mobile shelf is less than or equal to the number of the lanes, and the blocking mobile shelf is one of the mobile shelves; generating a target movement strategy according to the position of the request channel occupied by the blocked moving rack and the position of at least one lane, so as to move the blocking moving rack out of the occupied request channel according to the target movement strategy, and enabling the robot to pass through the request channel.

Optionally, generating a target movement policy according to the position of the request lane occupied by the blocked moving rack and the position of the at least one lane, includes: determining an initial node of a mobile shelf arrangement of the warehousing system according to the position of the at least one roadway; determining a target node of a mobile shelf arrangement of a warehousing system according to the position of the request channel, wherein under the target node, the robot passes through the request channel occupied by the blocked mobile shelf; and generating the target mobile strategy according to the initial node and the target node.

Optionally, generating the target mobility policy according to the initial node and the target node includes: performing at least one expansion on the initial node to obtain each first expansion node and calculating the moving cost of each first expansion node, wherein if the initial node performs one expansion, the moving shelf on the left side or the right side of any roadway corresponding to the initial node moves to the roadway; judging whether a first expansion node matched with the target node exists or not; and if so, determining the moving strategy corresponding to the matched first expansion node with the minimum moving cost as the target moving strategy.

Optionally, if there is no first extension node matching the target node, the method further includes: determining the first expansion node with the minimum mobile overhead as a target expansion node; expanding the target expansion node to obtain a second expansion node; judging whether the second expansion node is matched with the target node; if so, determining that the moving strategy corresponding to the second expansion node is the target moving strategy.

Optionally, generating a target movement policy according to the position of the request lane occupied by the blocked moving rack and the position of the at least one lane, includes: aiming at each tunnel, acquiring each initial movement strategy of the tunnel according to the position of the tunnel; for each request channel occupied by the blocked mobile shelf, determining at least one alternative movement strategy taking the request channel as an end node from the initial movement strategies; calculating the movement cost of each alternative movement strategy; and determining the target movement strategy according to the movement overhead of each alternative movement strategy.

Optionally, after determining at least one alternative mobility policy with the request channel as an end node from the initial mobility policies, the method further includes: and screening the at least one alternative mobile strategy according to the roadway distance between the request channel and each roadway.

Correspondingly, calculating the moving cost of each alternative moving strategy comprises the following steps: and calculating the movement expense of each screened alternative movement strategy.

Optionally, generating a target movement policy according to the position of the request lane occupied by the blocked moving rack and the position of the at least one lane, includes: generating each alternative movement strategy according to the position of the request channel occupied by each blocked movable shelf and the position of each roadway; calculating the movement cost of each alternative movement strategy; and determining the target movement strategy according to the movement overhead of each alternative movement strategy.

Optionally, generating each alternative movement policy according to the position of the request channel occupied by each blocked moving rack and the position of each lane, includes: and aiming at each lane, generating each alternative movement strategy corresponding to the lane by taking the position of the lane as a starting node and taking the position corresponding to the request channel occupied by each blocked movable shelf as an ending node.

Optionally, calculating a moving cost of each candidate moving policy includes: and determining the movement cost of each alternative movement strategy according to the number of the movable shelves required to be moved by the alternative movement strategy.

Optionally, generating a target movement policy according to the position of the request lane occupied by the blocked moving rack and the position of the at least one lane, includes: for each request channel occupied by the blocked movable shelf, determining a target lane of the request channel from all lanes according to the position of the request channel and the positions of all lanes; and generating the target movement strategy according to the position of the request channel and the position of the target lane corresponding to the request channel aiming at each request channel occupied by the blocked movable shelves so as to control each target movable shelf to move according to the target movement strategy, wherein the target movable shelves comprise the blocked movable shelves corresponding to each request channel and each movable shelf between each blocked movable shelf and the corresponding target lane.

Optionally, determining a target lane of the request channel from each lane according to the position of the request channel and the position of each lane, includes: calculating the roadway distance between the request channel and each roadway according to the position of the request channel and the position of each roadway; and determining a target roadway of each request channel according to the roadway distance corresponding to each request channel, wherein the sum of the roadway distances between each request channel and the corresponding target roadway is minimum.

Optionally, after generating the target movement policy, the method further includes: acquiring first time when the robot moves to a corresponding request channel occupied by the blocked moving shelf; determining the moving time of the corresponding one or more moving shelves according to the target moving strategy, wherein the moving time is the time required for the one or more moving shelves corresponding to the target moving strategy to move to the position specified by the target moving strategy; and determining the execution time of the target movement strategy according to the first time and the movement time so as to execute the target movement strategy at the execution time.

Optionally, determining the execution time of the target movement policy according to the first time and the movement time includes: and if the first time corresponding to the current time is equal to the sum of the moving time and a preset time margin, determining the current time as the execution time.

In a second aspect, an embodiment of the present disclosure further provides a shelf scheduling apparatus, where the apparatus includes:

the request acquisition module is used for determining a request channel of the robot, wherein the request channel is a channel which the robot requests to pass through, at least one request channel is occupied by a blocking mobile shelf, the number of the request channels occupied by the blocking mobile shelf is less than or equal to the number of the lanes, and the blocking mobile shelf is one of the mobile shelves; and the movement strategy generation module is used for generating a target movement strategy according to the position of the request channel occupied by the blocked moving shelf and the position of at least one lane, so as to move the blocked moving shelf out of the occupied request channel according to the target movement strategy, and enable the robot to pass through the request channel.

In a third aspect, an embodiment of the present disclosure further provides a shelf scheduling apparatus, which includes a memory and at least one processor; the memory stores computer-executable instructions; the at least one processor executes the computer-executable instructions stored by the memory, so that the at least one processor performs the shelf scheduling method provided by any corresponding embodiment of the first aspect of the disclosure.

In a fourth aspect, an embodiment of the present disclosure further provides a warehousing system, where the warehousing system includes a robot, at least one roadway, a plurality of mobile shelves, and a shelf scheduling device provided in an embodiment corresponding to the third aspect of the present disclosure; the movable goods shelves can move along a set direction, and when the distance between every two adjacent movable goods shelves is larger than or equal to a preset width, a roadway exists between every two adjacent movable goods shelves.

In a fifth aspect, an embodiment of the present disclosure further provides a computer-readable storage medium, where a computer-executable instruction is stored in the computer-readable storage medium, and when a processor executes the computer-executable instruction, the shelf scheduling method provided in any embodiment corresponding to the first aspect of the present disclosure is implemented.

In a sixth aspect, the disclosed embodiments further provide a computer program product, which includes a computer program, and when the computer program is executed by a processor of a shelf scheduling apparatus, the shelf scheduling apparatus executes the shelf scheduling method provided in any embodiment corresponding to the first aspect of the present disclosure.

The shelf scheduling method, the shelf scheduling device, the shelf scheduling equipment, the shelf scheduling system and the storage medium provided by the disclosure aim at the storage system comprising a plurality of mobile shelves, the mobile shelves can move along a set direction, when the distance between two adjacent mobile shelves is large enough, a roadway through which a robot can pass exists between the two adjacent mobile shelves, the shelf scheduling method generates a moving strategy by determining a request channel which the robot needs to pass through and is occupied by a blocked mobile shelf, and further based on the position of the request channel occupied by the blocked mobile shelf and the position of each roadway which currently exists, so that the automatic scheduling of the mobile shelves is realized based on the moving strategy, the robot can still pass through the various shelves, the flexibility of the walking path of the robot is improved, meanwhile, the flexibility of the shelf positions of the storage system is improved by arranging the movable mobile shelves, because the space for the robot to walk is not required to be reserved between every two adjacent goods shelves, more mobile goods shelves can be arranged for storing goods, and the storage density and the space utilization rate of the storage system are improved.

Drawings

The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate embodiments consistent with the present disclosure and together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the disclosure.

Fig. 1 is an application scenario diagram of a shelf scheduling method according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 2 is a flow diagram of a shelf scheduling method provided by one embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of the robot in the embodiment of FIG. 2 according to the present disclosure;

FIG. 4 is a schematic view of the warehousing system of the embodiment of FIG. 2 of the present disclosure;

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of the warehousing system after execution of the target movement policy according to the embodiment of the disclosure shown in FIG. 4;

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram of a shelf scheduling method according to another embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 7 is a flow diagram of shelf scheduling provided by another embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 8 is a schematic structural diagram of a shelf scheduling device according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 9 is a schematic structural diagram of a shelf scheduling apparatus according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 10 is a schematic structural diagram of a warehousing system according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

With the foregoing drawings in mind, certain embodiments of the disclosure have been shown and described in more detail below. These drawings and written description are not intended to limit the scope of the disclosed concepts in any way, but rather to illustrate the concepts of the disclosure to those skilled in the art by reference to specific embodiments.

Detailed Description

Reference will now be made in detail to the exemplary embodiments, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. When the following description refers to the accompanying drawings, like numbers in different drawings represent the same or similar elements unless otherwise indicated. The implementations described in the exemplary embodiments below are not intended to represent all implementations consistent with the present disclosure. Rather, they are merely examples of apparatus and methods consistent with certain aspects of the present disclosure, as detailed in the appended claims.

The following describes the technical solutions of the present disclosure and how to solve the above technical problems in specific embodiments. The following several specific embodiments may be combined with each other, and details of the same or similar concepts or processes may not be repeated in some embodiments. Embodiments of the present disclosure will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

The following explains an application scenario of the embodiment of the present disclosure:

fig. 1 is an application scenario diagram of a shelf scheduling method according to an embodiment of the disclosure, as shown in fig. 1, a warehousing system 100 includes a scheduling device 110, a plurality of shelves 120, and a robot 130, where the scheduling device 110 is configured to receive orders and issue task instructions to the robot 130, and the robot 130 moves based on the task instructions so as to transport goods placed on the shelves 120 to an operation table for goods sorting or ex-warehouse, or transport goods to the shelves 120 for warehousing, or patrol the shelves 120 for sorting the goods positions on the shelves 120.

In the prior art, the shelves 120 are generally fixed shelves, that is, the shelves are fixedly disposed at various positions of the warehouse, and a fixed space is reserved between adjacent shelves 120, so that the robot 130 can shuttle between the shelves to perform corresponding tasks. In order to ensure the safety of the robot 130 during movement and operation, a large fixed space is usually reserved between adjacent shelves 120, which results in a small number of shelves 120 that can be set by the warehousing system, and a low space utilization rate of the warehousing system, resulting in a high warehousing cost.

In order to improve the space utilization rate of the warehousing system, the shelves in the warehousing system provided by the embodiment of the disclosure are mobile shelves, the distance between the mobile shelves can be as small as possible, even 0, and the provided shelf scheduling method has the main concept that the movement strategy of the mobile shelves is automatically formulated based on the positions of request channels which are passed by the robot and occupied by the blocked mobile shelves and the positions of the existing various tunnels, wherein the tunnels are channels through which the robot can pass, so that the request channels of the robot are opened, the robot can pass through the channels, the warehousing mode based on the mobile shelves is realized, the space utilization rate of the warehousing system is improved, and the robot can execute various operation tasks with higher efficiency and the operation efficiency of the robot is improved by the shelf scheduling method.

Fig. 2 is a flowchart of a shelf scheduling method according to an embodiment of the present disclosure, and as shown in fig. 2, the shelf scheduling method is suitable for a warehousing system including a plurality of moving shelves and at least one lane, the moving shelves can move along a set direction, a distance between two adjacent moving shelves can be sufficiently small, even 0, and when the distance between two adjacent moving shelves is greater than or equal to a preset width, a lane exists between two adjacent moving shelves. The shelf scheduling method may be performed by a shelf scheduling device in the warehousing system, which may be in the form of a computer or server. The shelf scheduling method provided by the embodiment comprises the following steps:

in step S201, a request channel of the robot is determined.

The request channels are channels which are requested to pass by the robot, at least one request channel is occupied by the blocking movable shelves, the number of the request channels occupied by the blocking movable shelves is smaller than or equal to the number of the existing lanes of the warehousing system, and the blocking movable shelves are one of the movable shelves.

The robot can be a robot which executes operation tasks such as goods taking, goods placing, warehouse arranging, sorting and inspection.

In some embodiments, the robot may include a robotic arm, handling device, etc. to pick up or deposit goods, and the robot may further include storage racks, which may be multi-tiered, to temporarily deposit goods during handling of containers.

For example, fig. 3 is a schematic structural diagram of a robot in the embodiment shown in fig. 2 of the present disclosure, as shown in fig. 3, the robot includes a support assembly 310, a moving chassis 320, a handling device 330, and a storage shelf 340, wherein the storage shelf 340, the handling device 330, and the support assembly 310 are all mounted on the moving chassis 320. The storage shelves 340 may be provided with a plurality of storage units for one or more items to be transported. The support assembly 310 is provided with a lifting assembly for driving the carrying device 330 to move up and down, so that the carrying device 330 is aligned with any one of the storage units on the storage shelves 340, or with the shelves and/or goods in the warehouse. The handling device 330 can be rotated about a vertical axis to adjust its orientation for alignment to a storage unit or for alignment with a rack and/or goods. The handling device 330 is used to perform loading or unloading of goods for handling the goods between the shelves and the storage units.

For example, fig. 4 is a schematic diagram of the warehousing system in the embodiment shown in fig. 2 of the present disclosure, as shown in fig. 4, the warehousing system 400 includes a plurality of movable moving shelves and a robot 420, fig. 4 takes 5 moving shelves as an example, i.e., moving shelf 411 to moving shelf 415, each moving shelf may move left and right along direction D, and may only move to the aisle or adjacent lane corresponding to its adjacent moving shelf each time. In some embodiments, the edge position mobile shelf may only move beyond the set direction of the edge, such as mobile shelf 411 in fig. 4 may only move to the right in direction D, while mobile shelf 415 may only move to the left in direction D. In fig. 4, the warehousing system includes a tunnel between the movable shelf 412 and the movable shelf 413, and the distance between the remaining movable shelves, such as the distance between the movable shelf 412 and the movable shelf 411, may be as small as possible, and in some embodiments, may be 0, so that the warehousing system may place more movable shelves for warehousing goods, thereby improving the space utilization of the warehousing system and reducing the warehousing cost. The request lane of the robot 420 may be a lane occupied by any one of the moving racks, and fig. 4 illustrates an example of a lane occupied by the moving rack 414, i.e., the moving rack 414 is the blocking moving rack described above.

In some embodiments, the mobile shelving may include a mobile device, which may be an electric mobile device, or may be a directional wheel, such that the mobile shelving can move in two opposite set directions, such as front and back.

Specifically, the request channel of the robot may be determined according to the walking path corresponding to the robot. The walking path can be determined according to the operation task of the robot and the storage condition of each goods in the warehouse.

Specifically, each request channel corresponding to each robot may be obtained, and each robot corresponds to one request channel.

Further, the walking path corresponding to each robot in the preset time period can be obtained, and the request channel corresponding to each robot is determined according to the walking path corresponding to each robot.

Step S202, generating a target movement strategy according to the position of the request channel occupied by the blocked movable shelf and the position of at least one lane, so as to move the blocked movable shelf out of the occupied request channel according to the target movement strategy, and enabling the robot to pass through the request channel.

Wherein the blocking mobile shelf is a mobile shelf through which the blocking robot requests the passage. The target movement strategy may include the mobile shelves that need to be moved, including at least the blocking mobile shelves, and the manner of movement of each mobile shelf. By executing the target movement strategy, the blocking movable shelf can be moved out of the request channel where the blocking movable shelf is located as soon as possible so as to open the request channel, and the opening of the request channel indicates that the request channel is changed into a tunnel, so that the robot can pass through the request channel.

Specifically, the position of the request lane occupied by the blocked moving shelf may be represented by a shelf number of the corresponding blocking moving shelf, such as 01, or may be represented by a serial number of the lane corresponding to the request lane, such as lane 1, or may be represented by coordinate information, such as (0, 1), where the abscissa represents the number of rows of the blocking moving shelf and the ordinate represents the number of columns in which the blocking moving shelf is located.

Specifically, the position of the lane may be represented by a shelf number of a movable shelf on the left side or the right side of the lane, or by a serial number of a channel corresponding to the lane, or by coordinate information.

Specifically, each moving shelf to be moved and the moving direction thereof can be determined according to the position of each request channel and the position of each lane, wherein the moving shelf to be moved at least comprises each blocking moving shelf; and further, based on each moving shelf which needs to move and the moving direction thereof, a target moving strategy is generated so that an operator or other robot can execute the target moving strategy.

For example, fig. 5 is a schematic view of the warehousing system after the target movement strategy is executed in the embodiment shown in fig. 4 of the present disclosure, as shown in fig. 5, the target movement strategy may be to move the moving shelves 413 and the moving shelves 414 to the left by a unit distance, which may be a width corresponding to a roadway, so that the moving shelves 413 are moved to the positions of the roadway, and the moving shelves 414 are moved to the original positions of the moving shelves 413, as shown in fig. 5 specifically.

Optionally, generating a target movement policy according to the position of the request lane occupied by the blocked moving rack and the position of the at least one lane, includes:

determining an initial node of a mobile shelf arrangement of the warehousing system according to the position of the at least one roadway; determining a target node of a mobile shelf arrangement of a warehousing system according to the position of the request lane occupied by the blocked mobile shelf, wherein the robot passes through the request lane under the target node; and generating the target mobile strategy according to the initial node and the target node.

The initial node is the arrangement condition of each mobile shelf or lane of the warehousing system before the target movement strategy is executed, namely at the current moment. The target node is the arrangement condition of each mobile shelf or tunnel of the warehousing system after the target moving strategy is executed. Under the target node, each request channel occupied by the blocked mobile shelf is opened, so that each robot can pass through the corresponding request channel.

Specifically, the target node and the initial node may be represented by shelf numbers or serial numbers of the movable shelves on the left side and/or the right side of the lane.

Specifically, the target node may be determined according to the shelf number or serial number of each blocking mobile shelf, so that each blocking mobile shelf moves to the left or right to open each request channel.

Illustratively, taking the embodiment shown in fig. 4 and fig. 5 as an example, the shelf numbers or serial numbers of the mobile shelves on the left and right sides of the lane are used to represent the target node and the initial node, since the lane is located between the mobile shelf 412 and the mobile shelf 413, the initial node may be represented by (412, 413), and since the request lane is a lane corresponding to the mobile shelf 414, the target node may be represented by (414, 415), that is, there is a lane between the mobile shelf 414 and the mobile shelf 415, that is, the mobile shelf 414 is to be moved out of the request lane, so as to open the lane corresponding to the mobile shelf 414.

For example, taking the warehousing system including 10 mobile shelves and three lanes as an example, that is, the mobile shelves 1 to 10 are located, a first lane is located between the mobile shelf 2 and the mobile shelf 3, a second lane is located between the mobile shelf 6 and the mobile shelf 7, a third lane is located between the mobile shelf 8 and the mobile shelf 9, request lanes are lanes occupied by the mobile shelf 4 and the mobile shelf 6, respectively, the serial numbers of the mobile shelves on the left side of the lanes are used to represent an initial node and a target node, the initial node is (2, 6, 8), and the target initial node may be (4, 5, 9); the sequence numbers of the mobile shelves on the left side of the roadway are used for indicating the initial nodes and the target nodes, the initial nodes are (3, 7, 8), and the target initial nodes can be (5, 6, 9), so that the corresponding channels of the mobile shelves 4 and the mobile shelves 6 are opened.

Specifically, the position of each mobile shelf may be determined according to the position of at least one lane, for example, the serial number of the channel corresponding to each mobile shelf is determined, so that the serial number of the channel corresponding to each mobile shelf is used to represent the initial node.

Specifically, when the number of request channels occupied by the blocking mobile shelf is equal to the number of lanes, the target node is determined according to the position of each blocking mobile shelf, for example, the serial number of the request channel corresponding to each blocking mobile shelf.

Illustratively, taking the warehousing system including 3 lanes as an example, lane 0, lane 1 and lane 2 are respectively, where the mobile shelf 1 is placed on lane 0, that is, lane 0 is occupied by the mobile shelf 1, the mobile shelf 2 is placed on lane 2, that is, lane 2 is occupied by the mobile shelf 2, lane 1 is the above-mentioned lane, the initial node is (0, 2), and if the request lane of the robot is lane 2, the target node is (0, 1), that is, the mobile shelf 2 on lane 2 is moved to lane 1.

Further, when the number of the request channels occupied by the blocked mobile shelves is smaller than the number of the lanes, the target nodes are determined according to the positions of the blocked mobile shelves corresponding to the request channels and the positions of the lanes.

Illustratively, the warehousing system comprises 5 lanes, lane 0 to lane 4, wherein the mobile rack 1 is placed on lane 0, i.e., aisle 0 is occupied by mobile shelf 1, mobile shelf 2 is placed on aisle 2, i.e., aisle 2 is occupied by mobile shelf 2, mobile shelf 3 is placed on aisle 5, that is, if the lane 5 is occupied by the moving rack 3, the lanes 1 and 4 are the above-mentioned lanes, the initial node is (0, 2, 4), and if the request lane of the robot is the lane 2, the target node may be (0, 1, 4), i.e., moving shelf 2 on lane 2 to lane 1, or the target node may be (0, 3, 4), i.e., moving the moving shelf 2 on aisle 2 to aisle 3, or the target node may be (1, 3, 4), i.e. moving the mobile shelf 2 on aisle 2 to aisle 3 and moving the mobile shelf 1 on aisle 0 to aisle 1.

Specifically, the generating the target movement policy according to the initial node and the target node specifically includes: and determining each mobile shelf which needs to be moved from the initial node to the target node and the moving direction of each mobile shelf according to the initial node and the target node, and further generating a target moving strategy based on each mobile shelf which needs to be moved and the moving direction of each mobile shelf.

The shelf scheduling method provided by the disclosure aims at a warehousing system comprising a plurality of mobile shelves, the mobile shelves can move along a set direction, when the distance between two adjacent mobile shelves is large enough, a roadway through which a robot can pass exists between the two adjacent mobile shelves, the shelf scheduling method determines a request channel which the robot needs to pass and is occupied by a blocked mobile shelf, and further generates a moving strategy based on the position of the request channel occupied by the blocked mobile shelf and the positions of the currently existing roadways, so that the automatic scheduling of the mobile shelves is realized based on the moving strategy, the robot can still pass through the various shelves, the flexibility of the walking path of the robot is improved, meanwhile, the flexibility of the shelf positions of the warehousing system is improved by arranging the movable mobile shelves, because the space for the robot to walk is not required to be reserved between every two adjacent goods shelves, more mobile goods shelves can be arranged for storing goods, and the storage density and the space utilization rate of the storage system are improved.

Fig. 6 is a flowchart of a shelf scheduling method according to another embodiment of the present disclosure, and this embodiment is further detailed in step S202 based on the embodiment shown in fig. 2. As shown in fig. 6, the shelf scheduling method provided by this embodiment includes the following steps:

step S601, a request channel of the robot is determined.

And step S602, determining an initial node of the mobile shelf arrangement of the warehousing system according to the position of the at least one roadway.

Step S603, determining a target node of the mobile shelf arrangement of the warehousing system according to the position of the request channel occupied by the blocked mobile shelf.

Step S604, performing at least one expansion on the initial node to obtain each first expansion node and calculating a mobility overhead of each first expansion node.

And the initial node is expanded once, and then the movable shelf on the left side or the right side of any roadway corresponding to the initial node is moved to the roadway. The mobility overhead may be determined by the steps and/or mobility time required for the initial node to move to the first extension node.

In some embodiments, a situation that the initial node is matched with the target node may occur, that is, the request channels are all tunnels, and there is no request channel occupied by the blocked moving shelf, step S604 and subsequent steps may be omitted, and it is directly determined that each robot may walk along its corresponding request channel.

Specifically, the first expansion node is an arrangement condition of each movable shelf of the warehousing system after the initial node is expanded at least once.

For example, taking the initial node (0, 2, 4) as an example, the first extended node obtained by extending once may be (1, 2, 4), (0, 3, 4), (0, 1, 4), (0, 2, 3). The first expansion node (1, 2, 4) is the moving shelf on the left side of the tunnel channel 1 and moves to the channel 1, that is, the moving shelf 1 moves to the channel 1, the first expansion node (0, 3, 4) is the moving shelf on the left side of the tunnel channel 3 and moves to the channel 3, that is, the moving shelf 2 moves to the channel 3, and so on.

Specifically, the mobility overhead of the first extension node may be determined according to the number of extensions, and the mobility overhead and the number of extensions are in a positive correlation.

Specifically, the moving cost of the first expansion node may be determined according to the moving shelf of each movement.

Further, the moving cost of each first expansion node may be determined according to the shelf level of the moving shelf of each moving. The shelf grade of the mobile shelf can be determined according to the number of goods stored on the mobile shelf, the weight of each goods, the type of goods in each goods and other factors.

Illustratively, the mobility overhead O of the first extension node may be:

where n is the number of expansions, s_iThe shelf level of the moving shelf for the ith movement.

Step S605, determine whether there is a first extended node matching the target node.

Specifically, each node includes a channel serial number set on each mobile shelf of the warehousing system, and for each first expansion node, it may be determined whether the serial number of the channel set on each mobile shelf corresponding to the first expansion node does not include the serial number corresponding to each request channel, and if so, it is determined that the first expansion node is matched with the target node.

Illustratively, the first expansion nodes obtained by once expanding the initial node (0, 2, 4) are (1, 2, 4), (0, 3, 4), (0, 1, 4), (0, 2, 3), and the request channel is channel 2, and then the mobile shelf placement cases corresponding to the first expansion nodes (0, 3, 4) and (0, 1, 4) do not include channel 2, and it can be determined that the first expansion nodes (0, 3, 4) and (0, 1, 4) match the target node.

Specifically, it may be determined whether a first expansion node consistent with the target node exists, and if yes, it is determined that the first expansion node is matched with the target node.

Illustratively, the initial node (0, 2, 4) is expanded twice, that is, two moving shelves are moved once to the left or right respectively, the obtained first expanded nodes are (0, 1, 3), (1, 2, 3), (1, 3, 4), the request channels are channel 2 and channel 4, the target node is (0, 1, 3), and the first expanded node is identical or identical to the target node, and it is determined that the first expanded node (0, 1, 3) is matched with the target node.

Step S606, if yes, determining the moving policy corresponding to the matched first expansion node with the minimum moving overhead as the target moving policy.

Specifically, if there is a first extension node matching the target node, the target mobility policy is determined according to the mobility mode or mobility policy of the initial node extending to the first extension node.

Further, if only one first extended node is matched with the target node, the mobile policy corresponding to the first extended node is directly determined to be the target mobile policy.

Illustratively, taking the warehousing system including lanes 0 to 4 as an example, the initial node is (1, 2, 4), that is, the mobile shelf 1 is placed in lane 1, the mobile shelf 2 is placed in lane 2, the mobile shelf 4 is placed in lane 4, the lanes are lane 0 and lane 3, and the request lanes are lane 1 and lane 2, then the first extension node consistent with the target node is (0, 3, 4), and the movement policy corresponding to the first extension node (0, 3, 4) is to move the mobile shelf 1 to lane 0 to the left, move the mobile shelf 2 to lane 3 to the right, and based on this, generate the target movement policy to control the mobile shelf 1 and the mobile shelf 2 to move to lane 0 and lane 3, respectively, so as to open the request lanes, that is, lane 1 and lane 2.

Step S607, if there is no first extension node matching the target node, determining that the first extension node with the minimum mobility overhead is the target extension node.

Specifically, if there is no first expansion node matching the target node after the expansion operation in step S605, the first expansion node continues to be expanded to find an expansion node matching the target node.

In order to improve the expansion efficiency and the efficiency of matching the target node, the target expansion node needs to be determined first, and then the target expansion node is used as an initial node to perform re-expansion so as to find the node matched with the target node.

Step S608, expanding the target expansion node to obtain a second expansion node.

Specifically, after the target expansion node is determined, the target expansion node is used as an initial node, and one or more times of expansion are continued to obtain at least one second expansion node, where a specific manner is similar to the expansion manner in step S604, and is not described herein again.

Step S609, determine whether the second expansion node matches the target node.

Specifically, after at least one second expansion node is obtained, it is determined whether a second expansion node matching the target node exists in each second expansion node, the determination method is the same as the determination method of the first expansion node in step S605, and only the first expansion node is replaced by the second expansion node, which is not described herein again.

Step S610, if yes, determining that the mobility policy corresponding to the second extension node is the target mobility policy.

Further, if there is no second expansion node matching the target node, step S607 to step S610 may be repeatedly performed, the second expansion node with the minimum mobility overhead is determined to be the target expansion node, and then the target expansion node is continued to be expanded to obtain a third expansion node, and whether the third expansion node matches the target node is determined, and so on until the expansion node matching the target node is found, so as to determine the target mobility policy based on the mobility policy corresponding to the expansion node.

By the aid of the expansion mode for determining the expansion direction based on the mobile overhead, the matching speed of the target node is increased, the rate of making a target mobile strategy is increased, the mobile overhead is reduced, the goods shelf scheduling efficiency is improved, and the scheduling cost is reduced.

In this embodiment, for a warehousing system including a plurality of mobile shelves, the distance between adjacent mobile shelves may be as small as possible, even 0, and a fixed space does not need to be reserved, so that the warehousing system can set more mobile shelves for warehousing goods, the storage density and the space utilization rate of the warehousing system are improved, and the warehousing cost is reduced; according to the shelf scheduling method, the initial nodes and the target nodes are determined according to the arrangement condition of the mobile shelves and the request channel of the robot, the expansion nodes matched with the target nodes are determined according to continuous expansion of the initial nodes, so that the target movement strategy of the mobile shelves is determined based on the movement mode corresponding to the expansion nodes, the blocking mobile shelves on the request channel are moved out based on the target movement strategy, the robot can pass through the corresponding occupied request channel, the flexibility of the walking path of the robot is improved, the walking distance of the robot during operation is reduced, the operation efficiency is improved, and when the initial nodes are expanded, the expansion direction can be determined based on the movement overhead, so that the expansion times are reduced, the matching speed of the target nodes is improved, and the shelf scheduling efficiency is improved.

Fig. 7 is a flowchart of a shelf scheduling method according to another embodiment of the present disclosure, where this embodiment is directed to a case of multiple request channels, that is, multiple robots request to pass through multiple request channels, and each robot may correspond to one request channel, and this embodiment further refines step S202 on the basis of the embodiment shown in fig. 2, and as shown in fig. 7, the shelf scheduling method includes the following steps:

step S701, a request channel of the robot is determined.

Step S702, aiming at each roadway, obtaining each initial movement strategy of the roadway according to the position of the roadway.

The initial moving strategy is a moving strategy which is established for each channel in advance by the warehousing system. Each initial mobility policy may be represented in the form of a tree graph, where the root node of the initial mobility policy, i.e., the starting node, is the corresponding tunnel.

Specifically, after the positions of the lanes are determined, the initial movement strategies corresponding to each lane are determined.

For example, in the case that the warehousing system includes 10 lanes, i.e. lane 1 to lane 10, for example, the lanes are lane 3 and lane 7, the initial movement strategy corresponding to the lane 3 may include: moving the moving shelves on the channel 2 and the channel 1 to the right once respectively, and moving the moving shelves to the channel 3 and the channel 2 respectively, wherein the branches of the dendrogram corresponding to the initial moving strategy are as follows: 3-2-1, the root node 3 indicates that the channel 3 is a lane, the first child node 2 indicates that the channel 2 is a lane, that is, the mobile shelf on the channel 2 is moved to the channel 3, and the second child node 1 also indicates that the channel 1 is a lane, that is, the mobile shelf on the channel 1 is moved to the opened channel 2. The initial mobility policy may further include: moving the moving shelves on the channels 4 to 10 to move to the right once respectively and move to the channels 3 to 9 respectively, wherein the branches of the dendrogram corresponding to the initial moving strategy are as follows: 3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10, the specific meanings are similar to those of the above description, and the description is omitted. By analogy, each initial movement strategy corresponding to the tunnel channel 7 can be obtained.

In step S703, for each request channel occupied by the blocked mobile shelf, at least one candidate movement policy that has the request channel as an end node is determined from the initial movement policies.

Specifically, the initial movement policy may be adjusted according to the request channel occupied by each blocked mobile shelf, so that the end node of the initial movement policy is the channel corresponding to the request channel occupied by the blocked mobile shelf, and the occupied request channel is opened.

Illustratively, taking the request lane occupied by the blocked mobile shelf as lane 9, the initial mobile policy is 6-7-8-9-10, 6-5-4-3-2-1, and the corresponding alternate mobile policy is 6-7-8-9.

Step S704, calculating the movement cost of each candidate movement policy.

Specifically, the movement cost may be determined according to the movement shelf that needs to be moved by each alternative movement policy, and the manner of calculating the movement cost of the alternative movement policy is similar to the manner of calculating the movement cost of the first expansion node or the second expansion node.

Optionally, calculating a moving cost of each candidate moving policy includes:

and determining the movement cost of each alternative movement strategy according to the number of the movable shelves required to be moved by the alternative movement strategy.

Specifically, if the moving costs corresponding to the movement of each moving shelf of the warehousing system once are the same, the moving costs may be determined according to the number of the moving shelves needing to be moved of the alternative moving policy, for example, the moving costs may be in direct proportion to the number of the moving shelves needing to be moved.

Further, the movement cost of the alternative movement strategy can be determined according to the shelf level of each movable shelf which needs to be moved by the alternative movement strategy.

For example, the mobility overhead S of the alternative mobility policy may be:

wherein m is the number of the movable shelves to be moved, s_jThe shelf level of the jth moving mobile shelf.

Optionally, after determining at least one alternative mobility policy with the request channel as an end node from the initial mobility policies, the method further includes: and screening the at least one alternative mobile strategy according to the roadway distance between the request channel and each roadway. Correspondingly, calculating the moving cost of each alternative moving strategy comprises the following steps: and calculating the movement expense of each screened alternative movement strategy.

Specifically, for each alternative movement strategy of each request channel occupied by each blocked moving shelf, it may be determined whether a distance between a lane corresponding to the alternative movement strategy and the lane of the request channel is less than a preset distance, and if not, the alternative movement strategy is deleted. The predetermined distance may be 3, 5, or other number of channels.

The alternative moving strategies are screened based on the roadway distance, the number of the alternative moving strategies is reduced, the rate of determining the target moving strategies is improved, meanwhile, the alternative moving strategies corresponding to the roadway with the short distance from the request channel are selected as the target moving strategies, moving expenses are reduced, and time and cost required by shelf scheduling are reduced.

Step S705, determining the target mobility policy according to the mobility overhead of each candidate mobility policy.

Specifically, the candidate mobility policy with the minimum mobility overhead may be selected as the target mobility policy.

In some embodiments, each alternative movement policy may be generated directly according to the position of the request channel and the position of each lane, that is, the step S202 may specifically be:

generating each alternative movement strategy according to the position of the request channel occupied by each blocked movable shelf and the position of each roadway; calculating the movement cost of each alternative movement strategy; and determining the target movement strategy according to the movement overhead of each alternative movement strategy.

The advantage of this arrangement is that, without determining each alternative movement strategy by traversing each initial movement strategy, each alternative movement strategy can be determined directly based on the position of the request channel occupied by the blocked moving shelf and the position of the lane, thereby increasing the speed of determining the target movement strategy.

Specifically, various permutation and combination modes corresponding to the request channels and the lanes can be determined according to the positions of the request channels and the positions of the lanes, and then the alternative movement strategies corresponding to each permutation and combination mode are generated.

Optionally, generating each alternative movement policy according to the position of the request channel occupied by each blocked moving rack and the position of each lane, includes:

and aiming at each lane, generating each alternative movement strategy corresponding to the lane by taking the position of the lane as a starting node and taking the position corresponding to the request channel occupied by each blocked movable shelf as an ending node.

Specifically, for each arrangement combination mode of the lane and the request channel, the lane in the arrangement combination mode is used as a start node, and the request channel occupied by the blocked mobile shelf is used as an end node, and the alternative movement strategy in the arrangement combination mode is generated, so that each mobile shelf corresponding to the position of the lane and the position of the request channel occupied by the blocked mobile shelf moves by a unit distance along the direction of the position of the lane, and the unit distance can be the sum of the widths of the lane and the mobile shelf, so that the request channel occupied by the blocked mobile shelf is opened.

In some embodiments, each robot requests to pass through one request channel, and if there are multiple request channels occupied by the blocked moving shelves, a target lane may be allocated to each request channel, so as to generate a target moving policy for each robot based on the position of the request channel and the position of the target lane, that is, the step S202 may specifically be:

for each request channel occupied by the blocked movable shelf, determining a target lane of the request channel from all lanes according to the position of the request channel and the positions of all lanes; and generating a target movement strategy corresponding to the request channel according to the position of the request channel and the position of the target roadway corresponding to the request channel aiming at each request channel occupied by the blocked movable shelves so as to control each target movable shelf to move according to the target movement strategy.

The target mobile shelves are all the mobile shelves which need to be moved by the target moving strategy, and each mobile shelf comprises a blocking mobile shelf corresponding to each request channel and each mobile shelf between each blocking mobile shelf and the corresponding target roadway.

Specifically, before determining the target movement policy, a lane close to the request lane occupied by each blocked moving shelf, that is, a target lane, may be matched first, so that the target lane is used as a start node, and the request lane occupied by the blocked moving shelf is used as an end node, and a target movement policy corresponding to the request lane occupied by the blocked moving shelf is generated.

Optionally, determining a target lane of the request channel from each lane according to the position of the request channel and the position of each lane, includes:

calculating the roadway distance between the request channel and each roadway according to the position of the request channel and the position of each roadway; and determining a target roadway of each request channel according to the roadway distance corresponding to each request channel, wherein the sum of the roadway distances between each request channel and the corresponding target roadway is minimum.

The lane distance may be represented by an absolute value of a difference between a lane number corresponding to the target lane and a lane number corresponding to the request lane occupied by the blocked mobile shelf.

The method has the advantages that the corresponding lane is directly allocated to each request channel occupied by the blocked mobile shelf, so that a feasible target movement strategy is directly obtained based on the position of the request channel occupied by the blocked mobile shelf and the position of the target lane, the speed of making the target movement strategy is further increased, the sum of movement expenses corresponding to each target movement strategy is minimized, and the cost of shelf scheduling is greatly reduced.

Exemplarily, taking the warehousing system including 10 lanes as an example, that is, lane 0 to lane 9, and lane 3 and lane 7 are lanes, mobile shelves are placed on each of the remaining lanes, and the request lanes are lane 4 and lane 2, it can be known that the lane distance between lane 4 and lane 3 is 1, the lane distance between lane 7 is 4 unit distances, the lane distance between lane 2 and lane 3 is 1, and the lane distance between lane 7 is 5 unit distances, since different request lanes need to correspond to different lanes, that is, the target lanes of different request lanes are different, in order to make the sum of the lane distances corresponding to each request lane minimum, it can be determined that the target lane of lane 4 is lane 7, and the target lane of lane 2 is lane 3.

Step S706, acquiring the first time when the robot moves to the corresponding request channel occupied by the blocked moving shelf.

Specifically, the first time may be determined according to a position of the robot, a moving speed of the robot, and a position of the request passage.

In some embodiments, the moving speed of the robot may be set to be a uniform speed, so that the first time is proportional to the distance the robot moves, i.e., the path distance between the position of the robot and the position of the aisle.

When there are a plurality of robots, the first time at which each robot moves to its corresponding request lane may be calculated, respectively.

And step S707, determining the moving time of the corresponding one or more moving shelves according to the target moving strategy.

And the moving time is the time required for moving one or more moving shelves corresponding to the target moving strategy to the position specified by the target moving strategy. The moving time is the time required to execute the target moving policy.

In some embodiments, the time required for each mobile shelf to move from the aisle where the mobile shelf is located to the adjacent aisle is the same, and if the time is the second time, the moving time corresponding to the target movement policy may be determined based on the second time and the number of the mobile shelves that the target movement policy needs to move.

When the time required for moving the passage where the mobile shelf is located to the adjacent passage is different due to different shelf grades, such as different moving speeds of the moving devices of the mobile shelf, different sizes of the mobile shelf, and the like, the second moving time of each mobile shelf to be moved can be determined according to the shelf grade of each mobile shelf to be moved, and the sum of the second moving times is determined as the moving time corresponding to the target moving strategy.

Step S708, determining an execution time of the target movement policy according to the first time and the movement time, so as to execute the target movement policy at the execution time.

Specifically, the execution time of the target movement strategy is such that the robot completes the execution of the target movement strategy before or when reaching the entrance of the request channel, and the request channel is opened.

Optionally, determining the execution time of the target movement policy according to the first time and the movement time includes:

and if the first time corresponding to the current time is equal to the sum of the moving time and a preset time margin, determining the current time as the execution time.

The preset time margin can be a fixed value, such as 1min, 30s or other values, and can also be determined according to the fluctuation condition of the robot speed, the deviation of the required time when the mobile shelf moves, the signal transmission error of the warehousing system and other factors.

Through the setting of presetting the time allowance for the request passageway can in time be opened before the robot reaches, so that the robot is current, and has avoided too early opening the request passageway, and lead to other operation tasks to receive the influence, has improved the efficiency of storage operation.

In this embodiment, by generating an initial mobility policy corresponding to each tunnel, determining each feasible alternative mobility policy by traversing the initial mobility policy, and by calculating the mobility overhead of each alternative mobility policy, determining the alternative mobility policy with the minimum mobility overhead as the target mobility policy, the feasibility of the target mobility policy is improved, the overhead of the target mobility policy is reduced, and the shelf scheduling cost is reduced; meanwhile, the execution time of the target movement strategy is determined based on the first time when the robot moves to the request channel and the movement time required by the target movement strategy, so that the request channel is opened before or when the robot arrives, the walking smoothness and efficiency of the robot are ensured, and the condition that the request channel is opened too early to influence the execution of other operation tasks of the system is avoided.

Fig. 8 is a schematic structural diagram of a shelf scheduling apparatus according to an embodiment of the present disclosure, and as shown in fig. 8, the shelf scheduling apparatus includes: a request acquisition module 810 and a mobility policy generation module 820.

The request obtaining module 810 is configured to determine a request channel of a robot, where the request channel is a channel through which the robot requests to pass, and at least one request channel is occupied by a blocking mobile shelf, the number of the request channels occupied by the blocking mobile shelf is less than or equal to the number of lanes, and the blocking mobile shelf is one of the mobile shelves; a moving strategy generating module 820, configured to generate a target moving strategy according to the position of the request channel occupied by the blocked moving rack and the position of the at least one lane, so as to move the blocked moving rack out of the occupied request channel according to the target moving strategy, so that the robot passes through the request channel.

Optionally, the mobile policy generating module 820 includes: the initial node determining unit is used for determining the initial node of the mobile shelf arrangement of the warehousing system according to the position of the at least one roadway; a target node determination unit for determining a target node of a moving rack arrangement of the warehousing system according to a position of the request lane occupied by the blocked moving rack, wherein the robot passes through the request lane occupied by the blocked moving rack under the target node; and the first mobile strategy generating unit is used for generating the target mobile strategy according to the initial node and the target node.

Optionally, the first movement policy generating unit is specifically configured to: performing at least one expansion on the initial node to obtain each first expansion node and calculating the moving cost of each first expansion node, wherein if the initial node performs one expansion, the moving shelf on the left side or the right side of any roadway corresponding to the initial node moves to the roadway; judging whether a first expansion node matched with the target node exists or not; and if so, determining the moving strategy corresponding to the matched first expansion node with the minimum moving cost as the target moving strategy.

Optionally, the apparatus further comprises: a second mobile policy generating unit, configured to determine, if there is no first extension node that matches the target node, that the first extension node with the smallest mobile overhead is the target extension node; expanding the target expansion node to obtain a second expansion node; judging whether the second expansion node is matched with the target node; if so, determining that the moving strategy corresponding to the second expansion node is the target moving strategy.

Optionally, the mobile policy generating module 820 includes: the initial strategy generating unit is used for acquiring each initial movement strategy of the roadway according to the position of the roadway for each roadway; an alternative strategy determination unit, which is used for determining at least one alternative movement strategy taking the request channel as an end node from each initial movement strategy aiming at each request channel occupied by the blocked moving shelf; the expense calculation unit is used for calculating the movement expense of each alternative movement strategy; and the first mobile strategy determining unit is used for determining the target mobile strategy according to the mobile overhead of each alternative mobile strategy.

Optionally, the apparatus further comprises: and the alternative strategy screening module is used for screening at least one alternative mobile strategy by taking the request channel as an end node according to the roadway distance between the request channel and each roadway after determining the at least one alternative mobile strategy from each initial mobile strategy.

Correspondingly, the overhead calculating unit is specifically configured to: and calculating the movement expense of each screened alternative movement strategy.

Optionally, the mobile policy generating module 820 includes: the alternative strategy generating unit is used for generating each alternative movement strategy according to the position of the request channel occupied by each blocked movable shelf and the position of each roadway; calculating the movement cost of each alternative movement strategy; and the second mobile strategy determining unit is used for determining the target mobile strategy according to the mobile overhead of each alternative mobile strategy.

Optionally, the alternative policy generating unit is specifically configured to: and aiming at each lane, generating each alternative movement strategy corresponding to the lane by taking the position of the lane as a starting node and taking the position corresponding to the request channel occupied by each blocked movable shelf as an ending node.

Optionally, the overhead calculating unit is specifically configured to: and determining the movement cost of each alternative movement strategy according to the number of the movable shelves required to be moved by the alternative movement strategy.

Optionally, the mobile policy generating module 820 includes: a target lane determining unit, configured to determine, for each request lane occupied by the blocked mobile shelf, a target lane of the request lane from among the lanes according to a position of the request lane and positions of the lanes; and a third movement strategy generation unit, configured to generate, for each request channel occupied by a blocked moving rack, the target movement strategy according to the position of the request channel and the position of the target lane corresponding to the request channel, so as to control each target moving rack to move according to the target movement strategy, where the target moving rack includes the blocked moving rack corresponding to each request channel and each moving rack between each blocked moving rack and the corresponding target lane.

Optionally, the target roadway determining unit is specifically configured to: calculating the roadway distance between the request channel and each roadway according to the position of the request channel and the position of each roadway; and determining a target roadway of each request channel according to the roadway distance corresponding to each request channel, wherein the sum of the roadway distances between each request channel and the corresponding target roadway is minimum.

Optionally, the apparatus further comprises: a first time acquisition module for acquiring a first time when the robot moves to a corresponding request channel occupied by the blocked moving shelf after the target movement strategy is generated; the moving time acquisition module is used for determining the moving time of the corresponding one or more moving shelves according to the target moving strategy, wherein the moving time is the time required for the one or more moving shelves corresponding to the target moving strategy to move to the position specified by the target moving strategy; and the execution time determining module is used for determining the execution time of the target movement strategy according to the first time and the movement time so as to execute the target movement strategy at the execution time.

Optionally, the execution time determining module is specifically configured to: and if the first time corresponding to the current time is equal to the sum of the moving time and a preset time margin, determining the current time as the execution time.

The shelf scheduling device provided by the embodiment of the disclosure can execute the shelf scheduling method provided by any embodiment corresponding to the first aspect of the disclosure, and has the corresponding functional modules and beneficial effects of the execution method.

Fig. 9 is a schematic structural diagram of a shelf scheduling apparatus according to an embodiment of the present disclosure, and as shown in fig. 9, the shelf scheduling apparatus includes: memory 910, processor 920, and computer programs.

Wherein a computer program is stored in the memory 910 and configured to be executed by the processor 920 to implement the shelf scheduling method provided by any of the embodiments corresponding to fig. 2, fig. 6 and fig. 7 of the present disclosure.

Wherein the memory 910 and the processor 920 are connected by a bus 930.

The related description may be understood by referring to the related description and effects corresponding to the steps in fig. 2, fig. 6, and fig. 7, and will not be described in detail herein.

Fig. 10 is a schematic structural diagram of a warehousing system according to an embodiment of the present disclosure, as shown in fig. 10, the warehousing system includes: lane 1010, mobile shelf 1020, shelf scheduling device 1030, and robot 1040.

The shelf scheduling device 1030 is the shelf scheduling device in the embodiment corresponding to fig. 9 of the present disclosure, and is configured to generate a target scheduling policy so as to change a placement position of the mobile shelf 1020 of the warehousing system; the movable shelves 1020 can move along a set direction, such as front, back, left, right, etc., the number of the movable shelves 1020 can be multiple, for example, 5 in fig. 10; when the distance between two adjacent movable shelves 1020 is greater than or equal to the preset width, a lane 1010 exists between the two adjacent movable shelves, and two lanes are taken as an example in fig. 10; the robot 1040 may pass through the lane, and when the robot 1040 requests to pass through the lane, that is, when at least one of the request lanes is not a lane but another lane occupied by the mobile shelf 1020, the shelf scheduling device 1030 is required to generate a target movement policy to schedule the mobile shelf, so that the robot 1040 can perform a job through the corresponding request lane.

In some embodiments, the warehousing system also includes components such as consoles, conveyor lines, and the like.

One embodiment of the present disclosure provides a computer-readable storage medium, on which a computer program is stored, where the computer program is executed by a processor to implement the shelf scheduling method provided in any one of the embodiments corresponding to fig. 2, fig. 6, and fig. 7 of the present disclosure.

The computer readable storage medium may be, among others, ROM, Random Access Memory (RAM), CD-ROM, magnetic tape, floppy disk, optical data storage device, and the like.

The present disclosure also provides a program product, which includes executable instructions stored in a readable storage medium, and at least one processor of a shelf scheduling apparatus or a warehousing system can read the executable instructions from the readable storage medium, and the at least one processor executes the executable instructions to cause a shelf scheduling apparatus to implement the shelf scheduling method provided in the above various embodiments.

In the several embodiments provided in the present disclosure, it should be understood that the disclosed apparatus and method may be implemented in other ways. For example, the above-described device embodiments are merely illustrative, and for example, the division of the modules is only one logical division, and other divisions may be realized in practice, for example, a plurality of modules may be combined or integrated into another system, or some features may be omitted, or not executed. In addition, the shown or discussed mutual coupling or direct coupling or communication connection may be an indirect coupling or communication connection through some interfaces, devices or modules, and may be in an electrical, mechanical or other form.

The modules described as separate parts may or may not be physically separate, and parts displayed as modules may or may not be physical units, may be located in one place, or may be distributed on a plurality of network units. Some or all of the modules may be selected according to actual needs to achieve the purpose of the solution of the present embodiment.

In addition, functional modules in the embodiments of the present disclosure may be integrated into one processing unit, or each module may exist alone physically, or two or more modules are integrated into one unit. The unit formed by the modules can be realized in a hardware form, and can also be realized in a form of hardware and a software functional unit.

The integrated module implemented in the form of a software functional module may be stored in a computer-readable storage medium. The software functional module is stored in a storage medium and includes several instructions to enable a computer device (which may be a personal computer, a server, or a network device) or a processor (english: processor) to execute some steps of the methods according to the embodiments of the present disclosure.

It should be understood that the Processor may be a Central Processing Unit (CPU), other general purpose Processor, a Digital Signal Processor (DSP), an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), etc. A general purpose processor may be a microprocessor or the processor may be any conventional processor or the like. The steps of a method disclosed in connection with the present invention may be embodied directly in a hardware processor, or in a combination of the hardware and software modules within the processor.

The memory may comprise a high-speed RAM memory, and may further comprise a non-volatile storage NVM, such as at least one disk memory, and may also be a usb disk, a removable hard disk, a read-only memory, a magnetic or optical disk, etc.

The bus may be an Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus, a Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus, an Extended ISA (enhanced Industry Standard Architecture) bus, or the like. The bus may be divided into an address bus, a data bus, a control bus, etc. For ease of illustration, the buses in the figures of the present disclosure are not limited to only one bus or one type of bus.

The storage medium may be implemented by any type or combination of volatile or non-volatile memory devices, such as Static Random Access Memory (SRAM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), programmable read-only memory (PROM), read-only memory (ROM), magnetic memory, flash memory, magnetic or optical disks. A storage media may be any available media that can be accessed by a general purpose or special purpose computer.

An exemplary storage medium is coupled to the processor such the processor can read information from, and write information to, the storage medium. Of course, the storage medium may also be integral to the processor. The processor and the storage medium may reside in an Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC). Of course, the processor and the storage medium may reside as discrete components in an electronic device or host device.

Those of ordinary skill in the art will understand that: all or a portion of the steps of implementing the above-described method embodiments may be performed by hardware associated with program instructions. The program may be stored in a computer-readable storage medium. When executed, the program performs steps comprising the method embodiments described above; and the aforementioned storage medium includes: various media that can store program codes, such as ROM, RAM, magnetic or optical disks.

Finally, it should be noted that: the above embodiments are only used for illustrating the technical solutions of the present disclosure, and not for limiting the same; while the present disclosure has been described in detail with reference to the foregoing embodiments, those of ordinary skill in the art will understand that: the technical solutions described in the foregoing embodiments may still be modified, or some or all of the technical features may be equivalently replaced; and such modifications or substitutions do not depart from the spirit and scope of the corresponding technical solutions of the embodiments of the present disclosure.

Claims

1. A shelf scheduling method is applied to a warehousing system, the warehousing system comprises a plurality of mobile shelves and at least one roadway, the mobile shelves can move along a set direction, when the distance between adjacent mobile shelves is larger than or equal to a preset width, one roadway exists between the adjacent mobile shelves, and the method comprises the following steps:

determining a request channel of a robot, wherein the request channel is a channel requested to pass by the robot, at least one request channel is occupied by a blocking mobile shelf, the number of the request channels occupied by the blocking mobile shelf is less than or equal to the number of the lanes, and the blocking mobile shelf is one of the mobile shelves;

generating a target movement strategy according to the position of the request channel occupied by the blocked moving rack and the position of at least one lane, so as to move the blocking moving rack out of the occupied request channel according to the target movement strategy, and enabling the robot to pass through the request channel.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein generating a target movement policy based on the location of the request lane and the location of at least one lane occupied by a blocked moving rack comprises:

determining an initial node of a mobile shelf arrangement of the warehousing system according to the position of the at least one roadway;

determining a target node of a mobile shelf arrangement of a warehousing system according to the location of the request lane occupied by the blocked mobile shelf, wherein under the target node, the robot is allowed to pass through the request lane occupied by the blocked mobile shelf;

and generating the target mobile strategy according to the initial node and the target node.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein generating the target mobility policy based on the initial node and the target node comprises:

performing at least one expansion on the initial node to obtain each first expansion node and calculating the moving cost of each first expansion node, wherein if the initial node performs one expansion, the moving shelf on the left side or the right side of any roadway corresponding to the initial node moves to the roadway;

judging whether a first expansion node matched with the target node exists or not;

and if so, determining the moving strategy corresponding to the matched first expansion node with the minimum moving cost as the target moving strategy.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein if there is no first expansion node matching the target node, the method further comprises:

determining the first expansion node with the minimum mobile overhead as a target expansion node;

expanding the target expansion node to obtain a second expansion node;

judging whether the second expansion node is matched with the target node;

if so, determining that the moving strategy corresponding to the second expansion node is the target moving strategy.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein generating a target movement policy based on the location of the request lane and the location of at least one lane occupied by a blocked moving rack comprises:

aiming at each tunnel, acquiring each initial movement strategy of the tunnel according to the position of the tunnel;

for each request channel occupied by the blocked mobile shelf, determining at least one alternative movement strategy taking the request channel as an end node from the initial movement strategies;

calculating the movement cost of each alternative movement strategy;

and determining the target movement strategy according to the movement overhead of each alternative movement strategy.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein after determining at least one alternative mobility policy from the initial mobility policies that ends with the request channel, the method further comprises:

screening the at least one alternative moving strategy according to the roadway distance between the request channel and each roadway;

correspondingly, calculating the moving cost of each alternative moving strategy comprises the following steps:

and calculating the movement expense of each screened alternative movement strategy.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein generating a target movement policy based on the location of the request lane and the location of at least one lane occupied by a blocked moving rack comprises:

generating each alternative movement strategy according to the position of the request channel occupied by each blocked movable shelf and the position of each roadway;

calculating the movement cost of each alternative movement strategy;

8. The method of claim 7, wherein generating respective alternative movement strategies based on the position of the request lane occupied by each blocked moving rack and the position of each lane comprises:

9. The method of claim 5, wherein calculating the mobility cost for each of the alternative mobility policies comprises:

10. The method of claim 1, wherein generating a target movement policy based on the location of the request lane and the location of at least one lane occupied by a blocked moving rack comprises:

for each request channel occupied by the blocked movable shelf, determining a target lane of the request channel from all lanes according to the position of the request channel and the positions of all lanes;

and generating a target movement strategy corresponding to each request channel according to the position of the request channel and the position of a target roadway corresponding to the request channel aiming at each request channel occupied by the blocked movable shelves, so as to control each target movable shelf to move according to the target movement strategy, wherein the target movable shelves comprise the blocked movable shelves corresponding to each request channel and each movable shelf between each blocked movable shelf and the corresponding target roadway.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein determining a target lane of the request channel from each lane according to the location of the request channel and the location of each lane comprises:

calculating the roadway distance between the request channel and each roadway according to the position of the request channel and the position of each roadway;

and determining a target roadway of each request channel according to the roadway distance corresponding to each request channel, wherein the sum of the roadway distances between each request channel and the corresponding target roadway is minimum.

12. The method according to any of claims 1-11, wherein after generating the target movement policy, the method further comprises:

acquiring first time when the robot moves to a corresponding request channel occupied by the blocked moving shelf;

determining the moving time of the corresponding one or more moving shelves according to the target moving strategy, wherein the moving time is the time required for the one or more moving shelves corresponding to the target moving strategy to move to the position specified by the target moving strategy;

and determining the execution time of the target movement strategy according to the first time and the movement time so as to execute the target movement strategy at the execution time.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein determining the execution time of the target move policy based on the first time and the move time comprises:

14. A shelf scheduling apparatus, comprising:

the system comprises a request acquisition module, a request acquisition module and a control module, wherein the request channel is a channel which is requested to pass by the robot, at least one request channel is occupied by a blocking mobile shelf, the number of the request channels occupied by the blocking mobile shelf is less than or equal to the number of lanes, and the blocking mobile shelf is one of the mobile shelves;

and the movement strategy generation module is used for generating a target movement strategy according to the position of the request channel occupied by the blocked moving shelf and the position of at least one lane, so as to move the blocked moving shelf out of the occupied request channel according to the target movement strategy, and enable the robot to pass through the request channel.

15. A shelf scheduling apparatus, comprising: a memory and at least one processor;

the memory stores computer-executable instructions;

the at least one processor executing the memory-stored computer-executable instructions cause the at least one processor to perform the shelf scheduling method of any of claims 1-13.

16. A warehousing system, comprising: a robot, at least one lane, a plurality of mobile shelves, and the shelf scheduling device of claim 15;

the movable goods shelves can move along a set direction, and when the distance between every two adjacent movable goods shelves is larger than or equal to a preset width, a roadway exists between every two adjacent movable goods shelves.

17. A computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions stored thereon which, when executed by a processor, implement the shelf scheduling method of any one of claims 1-13.

18. A computer program product comprising a computer program which, when executed by a processor, implements the shelf scheduling method of any one of claims 1-13.