CN114803572B - Unloading system for cargo ship and ship unloader - Google Patents

Abstract

The embodiment of the disclosure provides a discharging system and a ship unloader for a cargo ship, wherein the discharging system comprises an executing device, a detecting device and a control device, the detecting device is connected with the control device and comprises a first detecting device and a second detecting device, the first detecting device is used for acquiring real-time image data of a material pile, and the second detecting device is used for acquiring real-time video data of discharging; the control device comprises a first control device and a second control device which are in communication connection with each other, wherein the first control device is used for realizing three-dimensional imaging and modeling based on the acquired profile information of the material pile and forming an optimized ship unloading strategy, and the second control device is used for enabling a user to set parameters of full-automatic ship unloading and monitor full-automatic operation of unloading on an operation terminal. The embodiment of the disclosure can realize full-automatic unloading operation for materials on a cargo ship.

Description

Unloading system for cargo ship and ship unloader

Technical Field

The present disclosure relates to the field of control of a ship for unloading, and in particular to a ship unloader and a system for unloading a cargo ship.

Background

The unloading process of the materials in the cargo ship in the prior art is often realized manually.

Disclosure of Invention

In view of this, the embodiment of the disclosure provides a unloading system for a cargo ship and a ship unloader, so as to solve the problems in the prior art.

In one aspect, the present disclosure provides a discharging system for a cargo ship, the discharging system including an executing device, a detecting device, and a control device, the detecting device being connected to the control device and including a first detecting device and a second detecting device, wherein the first detecting device is used for acquiring real-time image data of a material pile, and the second detecting device is used for acquiring real-time video data of discharging; the control device comprises a first control device and a second control device which are in communication connection with each other, wherein the first control device is used for realizing three-dimensional imaging and modeling based on the acquired profile information of the material pile and forming an optimized ship unloading strategy, and the second control device is used for enabling a user to set parameters of full-automatic ship unloading and monitor full-automatic operation of unloading on an operation terminal.

In some embodiments, the actuating device comprises a cart, the cart is capable of moving along a first direction, a beam is arranged on the cart, a trolley is arranged on the beam, the trolley is capable of moving along a second direction, and the second direction is perpendicular to the first direction; the trolley is provided with a grab bucket, and the trolley is connected with the grab bucket through a steel wire rope.

In some embodiments, the actuating device comprises a first rail, the cart is capable of moving along a first direction on the first rail, a second rail is arranged on the cross beam, the second rail is perpendicular to the first rail, and the trolley is capable of moving along a second direction on the second rail.

In some embodiments, the first detection device is disposed on the cart and the second detection device is disposed at a plurality of predetermined locations.

In some embodiments, the predetermined position is at least one of a front or rear of the cart, a middle of the second rail, and an upper side of the grapple.

In some embodiments, the first detection means is for initiating a level sweep mode of operation on the cargo hold of the cargo ship and the material in the bunk prior to a discharge operation to effect a blanket scan of the cargo hold and the material in the bunk by movement of the cart; the first detection device is also used for starting a turning and sweeping operation mode during each time of completing the grabbing operation of the grab bucket and leaving the cabin, acquiring image data of a pile profile of the grabbed material, automatically analyzing the updated pile profile, and immediately generating a next target position grabbed by the grab bucket; the second detection device is used for realizing the video monitoring auxiliary function under the full-automatic condition.

In some embodiments, the first detection device is a lidar and the second detection device is a camera device.

In some embodiments, the first control device is disposed on the cart and the second control device is disposed on the ground.

In some embodiments, the first control device is configured to implement three-dimensional imaging and modeling based on the acquired pile profile information of the material; the system is also used for separating the material pile from the cabin through analysis and calculation in the process of realizing three-dimensional imaging, and forming an optimized ship unloading strategy according to a continuous material taking strategy algorithm; the second control device is used for monitoring and maintaining the intelligent full-automatic system, and is also used for enabling a user to set parameters of the full-automatic ship unloading and monitor full-automatic operation of unloading on the operation terminal.

In another aspect, the present disclosure also provides a ship unloader comprising the unloading system of any one of the above.

According to the embodiment of the disclosure, full-automatic unloading operation of materials on a cargo ship can be realized, particularly, under the condition that an original operating system of a grab ship unloader is kept unchanged, a remote control center is established by arranging a full-automatic control unit to be matched with a central control room on the ground, unnecessary operators are not required to be equipped on the ship unloader, task parameters can be set on a human-computer interface, a ship unloading instruction can be issued, a cabin and material pile distribution three-dimensional dynamic database is established by automatic scanning of a detection device, the operation is automatically controlled by means of an intelligent algorithm, accurate grabbing and stable unloading can be realized under the principle of ensuring the safety balance of a ship body, and finally, the ship unloading operation under intelligent full-automatic control is realized.

Drawings

In order to more clearly illustrate the embodiments of the present disclosure or the technical solutions in the prior art, the drawings that are required to be used in the embodiments or the description of the prior art will be briefly described below, and it is obvious that the drawings in the following description are only some embodiments described in the present disclosure, and other drawings may be obtained according to these drawings without inventive effort to a person of ordinary skill in the art.

Fig. 1 is a schematic structural view of a ship unloader according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 2 is a schematic view of a ship unloader according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 3 is a schematic structural view of a cargo ship according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

Detailed Description

In order to make the objects, technical solutions and advantages of the embodiments of the present disclosure more apparent, the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present disclosure will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the accompanying drawings of the embodiments of the present disclosure. It will be apparent that the described embodiments are some, but not all, of the embodiments of the present disclosure. All other embodiments, which can be made by one of ordinary skill in the art without the need for inventive faculty, are within the scope of the present disclosure, based on the described embodiments of the present disclosure.

Unless defined otherwise, technical or scientific terms used in this disclosure should be given the ordinary meaning as understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which this disclosure belongs. The terms "first," "second," and the like, as used in this disclosure, do not denote any order, quantity, or importance, but rather are used to distinguish one element from another. The word "comprising" or "comprises", and the like, means that elements or items preceding the word are included in the element or item listed after the word and equivalents thereof, but does not exclude other elements or items. The terms "connected" or "connected," and the like, are not limited to physical or mechanical connections, but may include electrical connections, whether direct or indirect. "upper", "lower", "left", "right", etc. are used merely to indicate relative positional relationships, which may also be changed when the absolute position of the object to be described is changed.

In order to keep the following description of the embodiments of the present disclosure clear and concise, the present disclosure omits detailed description of known functions and known components.

A first embodiment of the present disclosure relates to a discharge system for performing a discharge operation, and fig. 1-2 show a schematic structural diagram of the discharge system of the embodiment of the present disclosure, which is mounted on, for example, a ship unloader 100, the ship unloader 100 being used to grab materials, such as coal, in a hold 201 of a cargo ship 200 into a cargo tank outside the cargo ship 200. The ship unloader 100 is generally provided at a dock where the cargo ship 200 is stopped, and the cargo ship 200 is stably held at the side of the ship unloader 100 when a discharging operation is performed by the discharging system. Furthermore, the hold 201 here may comprise one or more bunkers 202, the material being stored in some or all of the bunkers 202, the material being in the form of a pile in the bunkers 202.

Specifically, as shown in fig. 1 and 2, the unloading system here comprises an executing device 10, a detecting device 20 and a control device 30, the executing device 10 comprises a first rail 1, a cart 11 is arranged on the first rail 1, the cart 11 can move on the first rail 1 along a first direction, and the first direction is shown by an arrow in fig. 2 and is the same as the moving direction of the cargo ship 200; a cross beam 14 is arranged on the cart 11, a second rail 2 is arranged on the cross beam 14, and the second rail 2 and the first rail 1 are arranged in a direction perpendicular to each other.

Further, a trolley 12 is arranged on the second track 2, and the trolley 12 can move on the second track 2 along a second direction, wherein the second direction is perpendicular to the first direction; a grab bucket 13 is arranged on the trolley 12, the trolley 12 is connected with the grab bucket 13 through a wire rope 131, and the grab bucket 13 is used for grabbing materials in the cabin 202. In this way, when the cargo ship 200 is moved to a predetermined position on the dockside, the cargo ship 200 is kept under the second rail 2 while performing a discharging operation by the movement of the cart 11 on the first rail 1, so that the cart 12 is reciprocated and a material gripping operation is performed in the different bunkers 202 by the grab bucket 13.

Furthermore, in order to avoid collisions between the trolleys 11 in the ship unloader 100, which are different from each other on the same rail, a crash stop and/or a stop is provided at the bottom of the trolley 11 of each of the actuators 10, so that crash protection is achieved, wherein the crash stop may be an impact beam, for example.

In order to precisely detect the position of the cart 11 on the first track 1, an absolute value encoder module and a PLC network communication interface module are provided on the cart 11, through which the real-time position of the cart 11 of the ship unloader 100 is transmitted to the control device 30.

Further, an RFID verification device is disposed on the cart 11 and the first track 1, and real-time position data of the cart 11 is accurately corrected by the RFID verification device. In another embodiment, an anti-collision sensor is provided on the cart 11 of the ship unloader 100, and the anti-collision sensor acquires a signal and can transmit the signal to the control device 30, so as to realize an anti-collision protection function with the cart on the same track.

Further, the detecting device 20 includes a first detecting device 21 and a second detecting device 22, where the first detecting device 21 is disposed on the second rail 2 on the cart 11, and the second detecting device 22 may be disposed at a plurality of predetermined positions, where the predetermined positions may be, for example, a front or rear of the cart 11, a middle portion of the second rail 2, an upper portion of the grab bucket 13, and the like. The control device 30 comprises a first control device 31 and a second control device 32 which are connected in communication with each other, the first control device 31 being arranged on the cart 11, for example in a cab located on the cross beam 14 of the cart 11, the second control device 32 being arranged for example in a central control room located on the ground. The control device 30 may be connected to a control system of the ship unloader 100, in which a database is provided, and the control system may be a PLC control system, for example.

Specifically, the first detection device 21 may employ a high-precision laser radar, so that by mounting, for example, the high-precision laser radar on the cart 11 of the ship unloader 100, a sweeping operation can be started on the hold 201 of the cargo ship 200 and the material in the hold 202 in the hold 201 before the unloading operation, so that a coverage scan of the material in the hold 201 and the hold 202 is achieved by the movement of the cart 11. Furthermore, during each completion of the gripping operation of the grapple 13 and leaving the hold 201, the first detection device 21 is able to initiate a sweep mode, acquire image data of the pile profile of the gripped material and update this data into the database, and automatically analyze the updated pile profile, generating immediately the next target position for gripping by the grapple 13.

The second detecting device 22 is mainly used for implementing a video monitoring auxiliary function under a fully automatic condition, and may be, for example, a component of a video monitoring system of the ship unloader 100, in one embodiment, the second detecting device 22 may be, for example, a high-definition camera device, which is disposed in a middle part of the beam 14 of the cart 11, above the grab bucket 13, at two ends of the beam 14, etc., and the collected video signals may be transmitted to the control device 30, specifically, the video signals may be transmitted to the first control device 31 located in the cab and the second control device 32 located in the central control room by an optical fiber or wireless ethernet manner so as to be displayed on a corresponding monitoring screen.

The second detecting device 22 located at different positions can realize multiple monitoring functions, for example, a high-definition camera device can be arranged at the middle position of the beam 14 of the cart 11, that is, above the grab bucket 13, and the relative displacement between the hull of the cargo ship 200 and the wharf and the full loading condition of the unloading hopper in the unloading process can be intelligently perceived by using the image recognition technology based on machine vision, so that the safety guarantee is provided for fully automatic unloading. In addition, high-definition high-speed camera devices can be arranged at two ends of the cross beam 14 on the cart 11, so that the whole movement process of the grab bucket 13 can be covered by pictures acquired by the camera devices. The image recognition technology based on machine vision can be adopted to capture the position and the form change of the grab bucket 13 in the image and the video, so that the three-dimensional gesture of the grab bucket 13 can be known in real time, and front end data can be provided for grab bucket gesture sensing and anti-collision cabin.

The second detecting device 22 may be further disposed above the grab bucket 13, for example, may be powered by a lithium battery, so as to detect the position and the posture of the grab bucket, and after the second detecting device 22 obtains the position or the posture information of the grab bucket 13, the real-time coordinate position of the grab bucket 13 may be provided to the control device 30 by a wireless communication manner, so as to be used for safety monitoring of the grab bucket in an automatic operation state.

Further, the first control device 31 is configured to implement three-dimensional imaging and modeling based on the acquired pile profile information of the material; in the process of realizing three-dimensional imaging, a material pile of materials can be separated from the cabin 201 through analysis and calculation, and an optimized ship unloading strategy can be formed according to a continuous material taking strategy algorithm. The second control device 32 may be disposed in the central control room on the ground, so that not only is it convenient for an overhaul engineer to monitor and maintain the intelligent fully-automatic system, but also a user may be enabled to perform parameter setting on the fully-automatic ship unloader on the operation terminal, and monitor the fully-automatic operation of the ship unloader 100.

As described above, the first control device 31 and the second control device 32 are communicatively connected to each other, and in particular, the second control device 32, as a data and control information exchange platform, can establish a control signal communication network and a video communication network with the first control device 31, for example, located in a cab, using, for example, a high-speed wireless gateway, thereby achieving reliable communication with high bandwidth and low latency. For this purpose, a data interface software architecture with bidirectional communication and seamless connection may be provided between the first control device 31 and the second control device 32, where the first control device 31 may be an operation terminal for setting parameters and displaying interfaces by an operator, and the communication content is mainly interface parameter input, flow start-stop, data display, etc., and does not involve control of a main mechanism logic control, etc. that requires high real-time performance, and the main mechanism action control is still in the second control device 32 located in a central control room; the second control device 32 at least comprises a main control unit for full-automatic control, and may further comprise a client, so that an optical fiber communication mode is adopted between the main control unit and the client, and a heartbeat detection mode is still adopted, so long as communication abnormality is found, the main mechanism is stopped within 100ms, and safety is ensured.

Further, the control device 30 further includes communication modules respectively disposed in the first control device 31 and the second control device 32, which utilize high-speed network communication to establish a high-speed reliable communication link between the control systems of the first control device 31, the second control device 32 and the ship unloader 100. In this way, a communication module of an industrial high-speed network is utilized to establish a high-speed reliable communication link between the control device 30 and the control system of the ship unloader 100 as a data and control information exchange platform, and a high-speed wireless gateway is utilized to respectively establish a control communication network and a video communication network between the first control device 31 and the second control device 32, so as to realize high-bandwidth and low-delay reliable communication.

Further, in some embodiments, the communication between the first control device 31 located in the cab and the second control device 32 located in the central control room is achieved in two ways, the first is, for example, that an optical cable is laid between a ground junction box of a dock where the ship unloader 100 is installed and the cab, and an optical fiber channel in an original on-machine winding cable of the ship unloader 100 is utilized to achieve optical fiber communication between the second control device 32 located on the ground and the first control device 31 located in the cab; the second method utilizes a pre-established 5G communication network to realize 5G high-speed reliable communication by adding a 5G gateway and related communication equipment. The two communication modes are used as a mutual standby scheme.

Further, in order to fully utilize the characteristics of lower delay rate and higher security of the 5G technology, and ensure timeliness and reliability of mass data transmission, the communication content between the first control device 31 and the second control device 32 located in the ground central control room may be classified into three independent network segments according to video monitoring data, machine vision data and control data, and the independent 5G communication gateway is adopted to transmit the data respectively, so as to maximally improve the transmission rate and transmission quality.

By employing the above-described discharge system, a second embodiment of the present disclosure provides a discharge method, which may employ, for example, the discharge system of the above-described first embodiment, including:

s101, determining characteristic information of the unloading ship based on the serial number of the unloading ship.

In this step, characteristic information of the discharge vessel is determined based on the number of the discharge vessel. Specifically, when the discharge vessel 200 is at a predetermined position of the dock, the characteristic information of the discharge vessel 200 in the database of the control device 30 may be retrieved by obtaining the number of the discharge vessel 200, where the number of the discharge vessel 200 has a correspondence with the characteristic information of the discharge vessel 200; the number here may be, for example, a ship board number or other number for identifying the discharge vessel 200, and the characteristic information here may be, for example, information of the type of the discharge vessel 200, the size of the discharge vessel 200, the cabin position and size of the discharge vessel 200, the number of the cabins 202 in the cabin 201 of the discharge vessel 200, etc.

Furthermore, the unloading system is also capable of automatically completing a parameter initialization operation after the unloading ship 200 is docked at a predetermined location of a dock, including, for example, correcting position encoders of the cart 11 and the cart 12, etc. in order to confirm the position of the unloading ship 200, and the probe device 20 rechecks hull and cabin parameters of the unloading ship 200 by performing an automatic scan of the unloading ship 200.

S102, acquiring a material loading state based on the characteristic information.

After the characteristic information of the discharge vessel is determined based on the number of the discharge vessel through the above-described step S101, in this step, the material loading state is acquired based on the characteristic information. The material loading state here refers to a state of the bunk 202 loading the material in the discharge vessel 200 docked at the dock and a state of material stacking therein. Specifically, the method comprises the following steps:

s201, determining a discharging range based on the characteristic information.

In this step, the discharge range is first determined based on the characteristic information. Specifically, after acquiring the characteristic information such as the size information of the discharge vessel 200 and the cabin 201 and the bunk 202 of the discharge vessel 200, the first detecting device 21 is controlled to perform preliminary scanning of the cabin range of the discharge vessel 200 to determine the discharge range. The first detection means 21 may here be a lidar. For example, the end position information of the hold 201 of the discharge vessel 200 may be acquired based on the characteristic information, and the movements of the cart 11 and the trolley 12 may be controlled to achieve a preliminary scan of the hold 201 portion of the discharge vessel 200.

After the preliminary scan is completed, it may be defaulted that the bunkers 202 of all the loaded tanks 201 are within the unloading range; of course, the schematic diagram of the unloading ship 200 and the cabin 201 thereof may be displayed in real time on the man-machine interface of the control device 30, and the user may also determine the unloading range, i.e. the cabin 202 or the scanning range for scanning the material, in the schematic diagram. The discharge range is used for deep scanning to obtain loading information of materials.

In this step, the user may also load the current dump task. For example, a user can input task data such as a cabin to be unloaded, unloading depth and the like in an interface, and send a ship unloading instruction in a manual confirmation mode to start automatic ship unloading work; for the working condition of unloading the same ship by multiple machines, the current real-time residual material quantity in the cabin 201 can be displayed on a human-computer interface and used as a decision basis for an operator to manually and automatically coordinate ship unloading and scheduling.

S202, acquiring material loading information based on the unloading range.

After the discharge range is determined based on the characteristic information through the above-described step S201, material loading information is acquired based on the discharge range in this step. Specifically, after the unloading range is determined, that is, after the range in which the depth scan is required is determined, that is, after information such as the start point and the end point of the depth scan is determined, the cart 11 is controlled to automatically run from the start point to the end point for the depth scan in the unloading range. The formation of the running track here may be realized on the basis of any manner.

During a depth scan, the first detection means 21 on the cart 11 initiates a sweep mode to depth scan the hold 201 in the discharge range of the discharge vessel 200 therebelow to obtain material loading information on the discharge vessel 200; the scanning result is represented by the form of point cloud data, and the point cloud data reflects the material loading information.

However, in some embodiments, in consideration of high dust concentration in the cabin of the discharge vessel 200, high moisture content of the char, or severe environments such as rainy and foggy weather, dust particles, fog drops, water drops, etc. may cause great interference to the measurement results of the lidar, and in this step, an effective data processing algorithm may be adopted for the scanning results to minimize the interference, and "neglect" the small particle effects, and outline the real cabin and stockpile behind the dust, rain, or fog curtain.

In some embodiments, it is contemplated that radar may generally provide very accurate measurements when weather and environmental conditions are good, but in harsh environments such as dusty, humid, rainy days, dust particles, fog droplets, water droplets, etc. may greatly interfere with radar measurements. Dust particles, fog drops, raindrops and the like can be displayed in continuously-changed point cloud data formed by laser radar scanning, and high requirements are put forward on filtering and denoising algorithms due to random positions and forms. For this purpose, a radar data processing algorithm is executed for the point cloud data to cope with adverse environmental influences such as charcoal dust, rain, fog, humid climate, etc., comprising the steps of:

(1) Acquiring point cloud data representing material loading information;

(2) And processing the point cloud data by adopting a median filtering algorithm and a Gaussian filtering algorithm to obtain a window output value.

Firstly, a median filtering algorithm is combined with a Gaussian filtering algorithm to process the point cloud data, the values of the center positions of the sequence of the point cloud data are replaced by median values, all the data in a window are ordered according to a preset direction, or are arranged in ascending order or descending order, the values in the middle after the ordering are used as output values of the window, the value finally applied by the median filtering is the statistical median value of all the data, sharp values in the data can be eliminated, the Gaussian filtering replaces the values of the data points with weighted average values of the points and n data points before and after the points, and points far longer than the position distance are used as fixed end points, so that gaps and end points can be identified more clearly, and the Gaussian filtering can enable the original appearance of the data to be kept better.

In addition, in order to obtain the optimal linear filtering parameter, a wiener filtering algorithm may be adopted, and the optimal linear filtering parameter may be obtained based on the principle that the mean square error is minimum and the principle that the difference between the output signal of the filter and the required target signal is minimum.

(2) And denoising the window output value, and performing intelligent contour compensation on the point cloud data.

In the step, the system also carries out denoising processing by adopting an average curvature flow filtering algorithm, and carries out intelligent contour compensation on the current point cloud data according to the preamble historical data so as to lead the drawing of the contour to achieve the smooth and continuous optimal effect. The intelligent screening and compensating algorithm such as effective association filtering and contour compensation is adopted to reduce the interference to the minimum, and particles with tiny sizes are ignored to trace the outline of the real material behind dust, rainwater or fog.

Further, the cabin and the materials can be effectively distinguished by processing the point cloud data acquired by the laser radar. As the hull of the discharge vessel 200 floats up during the unloading process, the position change of the hold 201 and the material shape discrimination can be effectively solved. The point cloud data formed by the laser radar contains data of cabin profile and distribution profile of the material pile, and if the cabin profile and the distribution profile cannot be effectively separated, the grab bucket 13 cannot be guided to accurately work, and even collision danger is caused.

Therefore, during the unloading process, the ship body can incline or float due to the reduction of the materials in the ship cabin 201 and the influence of the tide rise and fall, in this case, the influence of the ship cabin floating must be counteracted, and the profile data of the distribution of the material pile is compensated in real time, therefore, during the unloading process, the ship body can incline or float transversely and longitudinally due to the reduction of the materials in the ship cabin 201 and the influence of the tide rise and fall, the characteristics of the deck and the hatch of the ship cabin are extracted from the point cloud data, the real-time accurate position of the hatch is obtained, the automatic compensation of the hatch position is realized in the dynamic ship unloading, and the method specifically adopts an optimized differential algorithm to realize the following steps:

(1) Extracting cabin features from the point cloud data; wherein the hold features herein include, for example, the marine or land side of the discharge vessel 200 as well as the deck being significantly different from the effective features of the in-hold stockpile, such as the side exhibiting a straight, continuous, regular profile; or the deck exhibits smooth, flat, continuous profile features; the method can also comprise the characteristics of association relation, height position relation and the like between the two outlines.

(2) According to the cabin characteristics, separating point cloud data corresponding to the materials and the cabin; specifically, after the scanning result in the unloading range is obtained, the scanning result includes point cloud data, and an effective data processing algorithm can be adopted to separate a cabin area from a material area in the point cloud data, so that the distribution condition of the materials in the cabin 201 can be accurately obtained, and the fluctuation condition of the material pile in the cabin 201 can be provided in a graphic image form to realize the effect of rapid visualization. The existing software is utilized to realize effective stripping of state characteristics on the basis of cabin characteristics by distributing bulk materials in the cabin, and point cloud data of different objects such as hatches, ship sides and the like.

(3) Acquiring the three-dimensional position of a cabin hatch, and realizing automatic compensation of the hatch position; specifically, after the shape characteristics of the material pile and the hull part are stripped by software, for example, the three-dimensional position of the hatch of the cabin can be monitored in real time by the real-time scanning data of the laser radar, including the horizontal position and the height of the ship side, and then the automatic compensation of the hatch position is realized in dynamic ship unloading (for example, when the ship body height changes, the compensation value can be the change value of the ship body height), so that effective data support is provided for the control of the grab ship unloader.

S203, determining a material loading state based on the material loading information.

After the material loading information is obtained in step S202, a three-dimensional mathematical model of the cabin 201 and the material pile distribution, that is, a pile model is automatically constructed by the control device 30. The most important thing in the stacking model here is the establishment of the coordinate system. For example, the bridge grab ship unloader has high efficiency and high mechanism speed, and can be regarded as a complex control system. The grab bucket automatic control logic of the original PLC system has strong professional especially, is used as basic execution software of grab bucket movement, and has very practical realization of keeping the independence of basic functions. The software function of the intelligent control system based on the artificial intelligence technology needs to establish a coordinate system based on a three-dimensional space besides a large amount of calculation and data processing, and guides each mechanism to run according to the given coordinates and paths of the software.

For this purpose, the main mechanism position coordinate system, the actuator position coordinate system, and the scanning profile coordinate system of the ship unloader 100 are combined into one to form a three-dimensional coordinate system under the full-automatic control system. The precise positioning and real-time software and hardware correction functions of the encoders of the execution mechanisms (grab lifting, opening and closing, trolley and cart) of the grab ship unloader are important bases for safe and stable operation of the grab ship unloader, and the integration of the machine mechanism position and the operator coordinate system of the action execution mechanism position of the grab ship unloader lays a software base for the anti-collision of the grab bucket and the material scattering baffle plate.

The ship unloader 100 needs to be capable of accurately controlling lifting, opening and closing and the trolley mechanism to perform rapid alignment, grabbing and other movements on a target material pile according to the target position coordinates of the bucket which are generated in real time, and meanwhile, the operation curve of the bucket avoids collision danger with a cabin, the ship unloader bucket and an accessory device. The precise positioning of each motion executing mechanism and each scanning contour target point is closely related to the normalization processing of each coordinate system, so that the full-flow automatic control of the ship unloading with high reliability can be realized under the three-dimensional coordinate system of the normalized intelligent control system.

S103, determining a grabbing strategy based on the material loading state.

After the material loading state is acquired based on the characteristic information through the above-described step S102, a gripping strategy is determined based on the material loading state in this step. Specifically, when the unloading system automatically unloads the ship in an intelligent control mode, on one hand, the center of gravity of a material pile in a cabin is always kept at the center of a longitudinal shaft and a transverse shaft of the ship body so as to keep the balance of the ship body, and on the other hand, the unloading efficiency is improved as much as possible. Therefore, the principle of determining the full-automatic grabbing strategy in the step is that the highest unloading efficiency position grabbing can be automatically searched on the basis of guaranteeing the balance of the ship body, or the maximum grabbing amount is realized for each bucket on the premise of guaranteeing the safe lifting capacity.

S301, determining an optimal target position based on the material loading state.

In this step, an optimal target position is first determined based on the material loading state. The optimal target position here refers to an optimal dropping position of the grapple 13 each time, by achieving determination of the optimal target position in the following manner:

(1) Firstly, digitizing and discretizing a stockpile model, and cutting the whole stockpile based on an independent minimum cell;

(2) Under the principle of ensuring the balance of the ship body, the system rapidly and automatically sorts the cells, and recommends a cell group with highest unloading efficiency as an optimal target position for grabbing by a grab bucket;

(3) After each bucket is grabbed, the shape of the material pile is automatically updated, and a new optimal target position is recommended according to the updated shape of the material pile.

S302, determining a grabbing track and a returning track.

The essence of realizing the full-automatic control of the gripping by the grab bucket 13 of the ship unloader 100 is that the grab bucket 13 and other mechanisms can be precisely controlled to perform the movements of aligning, gripping, etc. on the target stockpile according to the calculated coordinates of the optimal target position, where it is necessary that the coordinates of the quay and the fixed facilities of the ship unloader 100, etc. and the actuators (e.g., trolley, cart, etc.) of the ship unloader 100 and the scanning targets (the hold and stockpile of the ship unloader 200) are strictly unified.

Considering that the ship type of the discharge vessel 200 is a sea vessel, it is characterized by a small hatch and a large belly. In order to reduce the work load of cleaning the cabin, the dynamic cabin taking function of the grab bucket can be realized, namely, the grab bucket 13 stretches into the inner side of a hatch deck to grab materials. In this step, it is necessary to determine a grabbing track and a returning track of the grabbing head 13, that is, precisely control the speeds of the cart 11 and the trolley 12 by adopting a specific algorithm, so that the grab bucket 13 is controlled to fall on a material surface of a concave part in a cabin in a bucket falling process of the grab bucket 13, and meanwhile, damage caused by collision between the wire rope 131 and a hatch is avoided as much as possible; meanwhile, after the grab bucket 13 is moved away from the concave position of the cabin along with the movement of the trolley 12 after the grab bucket is closed, and after the grab bucket 13 is moved to the upper open position, shaking generated by the grab bucket 13 is restrained, the grab bucket is slowly lifted, and a grab bucket hooking hatch is effectively avoided in the lifting process.

During normal ship unloading, the grab bucket always keeps a certain safety distance from the edge of the cabin cover of the inner cabin, and grabs in a yellow square frame shown in the following figure, so that collision with the cabin seat and the cabin cover is avoided. The grab bucket is lifted from the cabin after being closed, and can return to the upper side of the grab bucket 13 along a return track calculated in real time (the return distance is the same), the running track is all followed within a calculated envelope line, and the envelope line and the scattering baffle keep a certain safety distance, so that the grab bucket 13 is prevented from collision danger with the scattering baffle at any moment. The machine vision recognition gesture function of the grab bucket 13 simultaneously has intelligent recognition of the ship side and the hatch, and collision prevention of the grab bucket and the ship side is guaranteed.

The positioning of the actuating mechanism (e.g., cart, trolley, etc.) of the ship unloader 100 and the contour positioning of the material are unified in the coordinate system, which lays a foundation for the collision prevention of the grab bucket and the ship body facility.

In addition, in the full-automatic ship unloading process, as the weight and buoyancy of the ship body continuously acquire new balance, the ship body can generate irregular displacement (outward displacement or skew) between wharfs due to the tension change of the mooring ropes, and the ship body displacement exceeds a certain threshold value, so that the software grabbing point judgment logic error is caused, and the automatic flow of the system is influenced. The system adopts an image recognition technology based on machine vision to collect the characteristics of the ship body and the wharf edge in the image, so as to realize the real-time perception of the ship body deviation condition.

In another embodiment, a method for gripping a material is provided, comprising:

s401, responding to the grabbing request, and executing grabbing operation based on the material loading state and the grabbing strategy.

After the gripping policy is determined based on the material loading state through the above-described step S103, in this step, in response to the gripping request, a gripping operation is performed based on the material loading state and the gripping policy. Specifically, there are two different ship unloading strategies with different emphasis: the balance priority strategy and the efficiency priority strategy allow a user to select according to requirements before unloading, and finally realize an intelligent layered pile-splitting continuous grabbing strategy considering both safety and grabbing efficiency, and specifically comprise the following steps:

s402, acquiring real-time material loading state and grab bucket attitude information.

In the step, real-time material loading state and grab bucket attitude information are acquired in real time. When the grabbing operation is started, the cart 11 automatically moves to a first position of the cabin 201 to be unloaded, the trolley 12 is automatically controlled to move to a second position, and the grab bucket 13 is controlled to lift according to a preset grabbing track and the opening and closing mechanism is controlled to go to an optimal target position to grab materials; after the bucket is closed, the grab bucket 13 automatically returns to the discharge hopper along the return track for discharging. In the process, the second detection device 22 acquires real-time material loading state and attitude information of the grab bucket 13.

For example, a high-definition high-speed camera is arranged at a specific position of the ship unloader, so that the picture of the camera is ensured to cover the whole process of grab bucket movement. The system adopts an image recognition technology based on machine vision to capture the characteristics and the posture change of the grab bucket 13 in images and videos, so that the system can acquire the three-dimensional posture of the grab bucket 13 in real time, and front end data is provided for posture sensing and anti-collision cabin of the grab bucket 13.

In addition, in the full-automatic ship unloading process, as the weight and buoyancy of the ship body continuously acquire new balance, the ship body can generate irregular displacement (outward displacement or skew) between the wharf due to the tension change of the mooring rope, and the ship body displacement exceeding a certain range can cause danger to the full-automatic ship unloading. The system is provided with the high-definition camera on the girder above the wharf edge, adopts the image recognition technology to realize real-time sensing of the situations of ship translation, skew and the like, and submits the real-time sensing to main control treatment.

In the full-automatic ship unloading process, the grab bucket 13 must stop continuing to unload if the unloading hopper of the grab ship unloader is full. The system is provided with a high-definition camera on the beam 14 above the discharge hopper, and adopts an image recognition technology to realize intelligent sensing under the working condition that the material stored in the hopper is higher than the grid plate and transmits the intelligent sensing to the control device 30 for processing.

S403, updating the grabbing strategy according to the real-time material loading state and the attitude information of the grab bucket.

In this step, during each discharge of the grapple 13 from the hold 201, a sweep mode is initiated by the first detection means 21, for example a lidar, to update the pile profile immediately after gripping to a database; and automatically analyzing and generating the next optimal target position for grabbing by the grab bucket 13.

Further, for example, after the current pile height is grabbed below the set height parameter, the cart 11 automatically moves to another position for automatic allocation to continue automatic grabbing, so that the full automatic process is ended after the whole cabin 201 is unloaded to the set final unloading depth.

The full-automatic ship unloading mode of this embodiment provides higher requirements for monitoring the operation posture of the grab bucket 13, that is, when the automatic grabbing operation is performed, the grab bucket 13 is once subjected to phenomena such as bucket dumping and twisting, and the like, so that the undesirable phenomena such as the hooking bucket body, the shaking of the grab bucket 13 after lifting up, and the like, are easily caused by the wire rope 131, and the danger that the grab bucket 13 rubs against the unloading hopper retaining wall is easily caused. Therefore, two reliable grab bucket gesture detection means can be provided, including grab bucket three-dimensional gesture resolving based on the principle of inertial navigation and grab bucket skeleton outline image recognition based on machine vision, and the two are redundant, so that the gesture of the grab bucket is detected accurately in real time, and swing is eliminated immediately, and high-reliability grab bucket closed-loop automatic control is realized.

Further, the connection between the trolley 12 and the grapple 13 of the ship unloader 100, for example in the form of a bridge grapple, is made by means of the wire rope 131, which has flexible, non-linear characteristics, which cause a certain uncertainty also in the disturbance of the waves in the port. During the grab bucket operation, the grab bucket 13 swings due to the acceleration and deceleration of the trolley 12, the lifting and lowering of the grab bucket 13, the wind force action, the friction of the steel wire rope 131 and the like, so that the uncontrolled swinging of the grab bucket 13 seriously affects the improvement of the operation efficiency; on the other hand, the swinging of the grab bucket 13 also increases the structural load of the ship unloader 100, so that the structural fatigue is accelerated, and potential safety hazards are easily generated. However, the manual sway elimination effect is severely dependent on the personal skills of the operator; the full speed of the trolley in the semi-automatic swing eliminating mode is not reached for the most of the time, which affects the overall operating efficiency, and in the fully automatic operating mode this requires that the grapple 13 accurately fall on the optimal target position on the stockpile and shuttle with a grabbing trajectory and the fastest speed between the unloading of the grapple 13 and the immediate generation of the target position. This is a realistic requirement for the complex swinging condition of the grab bucket 13 and for ensuring the ship unloading efficiency, and for this purpose, a rapid algorithm such as speed and position pre-aiming following is adopted to realize the full-course dynamic anti-swinging of the grab bucket, and a dynamic control technology with higher full-speed ratio of the trolley 11 is adopted.

As described above, uncontrolled swinging of the grapple 13 increases the gripping cycle time of the grapple 13, reduces the ship unloading efficiency, increases the uncertainty of control if controlled improperly, however, the key to achieving effective control and efficient operation of swinging of the grapple 13 is to know the advance position and retard position of the grapple in real time, thereby achieving closed-loop control and efficient swing elimination algorithm.

The semi-automatic software of the general ship unloader generally utilizes the swinging displacement of the grab bucket to the running direction of the trolley in a two-stage acceleration and deceleration mode to reduce the running stroke and running time of the trolley and realize the swinging elimination function. However, the swing elimination mode based on open loop control is greatly limited by further expansion and optimization in practical application: the starting and ending points of the grabbing and returning are limited to the same position, and the whole-course anti-shake of the grab bucket starting from any point and reaching any point in the coordinate system cannot be realized; most of the time, the trolley does not reach full speed, and the overall operation efficiency is affected.

In this embodiment, for the complex swing condition of the grab bucket and the realistic requirement of guaranteeing the ship unloading efficiency, the following manner is adopted:

(1) Firstly, based on real-time position accurate positioning and attitude data of the grab bucket 13, accurate monitoring realizes closed-loop control;

(2) And a speed and position pre-aiming following algorithm is adopted to realize the whole-course dynamic anti-shake of the grab bucket starting from any point and reaching any point in the coordinate system, and a dynamic operation strategy with higher full-speed ratio of the trolley.

In addition, the system has the automatic recovery function of receiving plate bulk cargo: in the full-automatic ship unloading process, the system is based on an image recognition technology, and when the fact that the accumulated bulk cargo on the material receiving plate reaches a certain degree is detected, the grabbing operation is automatically suspended, the material receiving plate is lifted and the bulk cargo is recovered. After the action is completed, the receiving plate falls down again to the proper position, and the system continues the automatic flow again.

The grab ship unloader must stop continuing to unload if the hopper is full, and in the manual mode of operation, such conditions rely on visual inspection by the driver. In the automatic ship unloading process, the system adopts an image recognition technology based on machine vision, and utilizes a deep learning network structure to train a full-load characteristic model of the hopper so as to realize intelligent sensing of the full load of the hopper.

Yet another embodiment of the present disclosure provides a method for gripping a material, which belongs to an intelligent adaptive technology applied to the unloading system in the process of gripping a pile.

This mainly takes into account that the grapple 13 can be dropped on the pile smoothly and keep the wire rope 131 properly loose when the unloading system is in full-automatic mode, and overtightening results in insufficient grapple after closing the hopper, reducing the unloading efficiency; too loose easily causes the grab bucket 13 to leave the material pile after the grab bucket is closed (namely, the steel wire rope 131 is changed from loose to loose) to be long, the ship unloading efficiency is reduced as well, and when the grab bucket 13 falls on a slope of the material pile, the too loose rope length enables the grab bucket to roll, so that abnormal working conditions of rope winding the grab bucket and hooking the bucket body are more easily caused, and the operation safety of equipment is influenced.

The system selects different bucket dropping and lifting strategies according to the pile profile data below the grab bucket 13 and the moment data of the steel wire rope 131, so that the steel wire rope is not loosened, tightened and the grab bucket is not fallen during bucket dropping; when the bucket is closed, the bucket automatically sinks to be deeply dug; lifting acceleration is controlled during bucket lifting, and the bucket is stably lifted to avoid impact; the execution details of the links give consideration to the operation safety and the grabbing efficiency of the grab bucket, and specifically comprise:

s501, acquiring contour information of the material pile at the grabbing position of the grab bucket.

In the step, firstly, the profile shape of a material pile where a grab bucket destination is located is obtained from a material pile profile database, the current fluctuation condition of the material pile is obtained, the deceleration distance of the grab bucket is controlled according to the corresponding proportion, and the attitude of the grab bucket is firstly ensured to be suitable for the shape of the material pile from the aspect of speed control of the grab bucket;

s502, acquiring a real-time moment value of the grab bucket lifting steel wire rope, and determining and outputting grab bucket parameters according to different change rate conditions of moment value curves, wherein the grab bucket parameters at least comprise a bucket falling stop instruction.

In this step, the system reads the real-time moment value of the lifting wire rope 131 of the grab bucket 13, and in the process of dropping the grab bucket, according to different change rate conditions of moment value curves, the grab bucket parameters comprise, for example, an output grab bucket stopping instruction, so as to ensure that the grab bucket wire rope is kept in a slightly loose state when the dropping of the grab bucket is finished.

S503, based on the grab bucket parameters, the maximum grabbing amount control of the grab bucket is realized.

In the step, when the grab bucket is closed, the system automatically sinks and digs by utilizing the dead weight of the grab bucket, so that the maximum grabbing amount control of the grab bucket is realized, and the grabbing efficiency is ensured. When the bucket is closed and lifted integrally, the system intelligently changes the lifting speed according to different change rate conditions of a lifting moment value curve, soft lifting is realized, and equipment safety is ensured.

In this way, selecting different rope unreeling strategies according to different material types below the grab bucket 13 is a key for improving the unloading efficiency and running safety of the grab bucket, and according to the contour projection shape of the current grabbing point and summarizing the steel wire rope tightness detection data, firstly, in the process of lowering the grab bucket 13 and contacting a material pile, intelligently sensing the current state of contacting the grab bucket 13 with the material pile, and keeping the steel wire rope of the grab bucket after falling loose, loose and falling; and then, when the grab bucket is closed for taking materials, the self weight of the grab bucket 13 is utilized to automatically sink by a certain extent, so that deep digging and taking materials are realized, the operation safety of the grab bucket is ensured, and the maximum grabbing amount control can be realized.

Moreover, although operations are depicted in a particular order, this should not be understood as requiring that such operations be performed in the particular order shown or in sequential order. In certain circumstances, multitasking and parallel processing may be advantageous. Likewise, while several specific implementation details are included in the above discussion, these should not be construed as limiting the scope of the present disclosure. Certain features that are described in the context of separate embodiments can also be implemented in combination in a single embodiment. Conversely, various features that are described in the context of a single embodiment can also be implemented in multiple embodiments separately or in any suitable subcombination.

Although the subject matter has been described in language specific to structural features and/or methodological acts, it is to be understood that the subject matter defined in the appended claims is not necessarily limited to the specific features or acts described above. Rather, the specific features and acts described above are example forms of implementing the claims.

While various embodiments of the present disclosure have been described in detail, the present disclosure is not limited to these specific embodiments, and various modifications and embodiments can be made by those skilled in the art on the basis of the concepts of the present disclosure, which modifications and modifications should fall within the scope of the claims of the present disclosure.

Claims (7)

1. The unloading system for the cargo ship comprises an executing device, a detecting device and a control device, and is characterized in that the detecting device is connected with the control device and comprises a first detecting device and a second detecting device, wherein the first detecting device is used for acquiring real-time image data of a material pile, and the second detecting device is used for acquiring real-time video data of unloading; the control device comprises a first control device and a second control device which are in communication connection with each other, wherein the first control device is used for realizing three-dimensional imaging and modeling based on the acquired profile information of the material pile and forming an optimized ship unloading strategy, the second control device is used for enabling a user to perform parameter setting on a fully-automatic ship unloading and full-automatic operation for monitoring the ship unloading on an operation terminal, the execution device comprises a cart and a first track, the cart can move along a first direction, a cross beam is arranged on the cart, a trolley is arranged on the cross beam, the trolley can move along a second direction, and the second direction is perpendicular to the first direction; the trolley is provided with a grab bucket, the trolley is connected with the grab bucket through a steel wire rope, the cart can move on the first rail along a first direction, the cross beam is provided with a second rail, the second rail and the first rail are mutually perpendicular, the trolley can move on the second rail along a second direction, and the first detection device is used for starting a horizontal scanning operation mode for materials in a cabin of a cargo ship and a cabin in the cabin before unloading operation, so that coverage scanning of the materials in the cabin and the cabin is realized through movement of the cart; the first detection device is also used for starting a turning and sweeping operation mode during each time of completing the grabbing operation of the grab bucket and leaving the cabin, acquiring image data of a pile profile of the grabbed material, automatically analyzing the updated pile profile, and immediately generating a next target position grabbed by the grab bucket; the second detection device is used for realizing the video monitoring auxiliary function under the full-automatic condition.

2. The discharge system of claim 1, wherein the first detection device is disposed on the cart and the second detection device is disposed at a plurality of predetermined locations.

3. The discharge system of claim 2, wherein the predetermined location is at least one of a front or rear of the cart, a middle of the second rail, and an upper side of the grapple.

4. The discharge system of claim 1, wherein the first detection device is a lidar and the second detection device is a camera device.

5. The discharge system of claim 1, wherein the first control device is disposed on the cart and the second control device is disposed on the ground.

6. The discharge system of claim 5, wherein the first control device is configured to implement three-dimensional imaging and modeling based on acquired pile profile information of the material; the system is also used for separating the material pile from the cabin through analysis and calculation in the process of realizing three-dimensional imaging, and forming an optimized ship unloading strategy according to a continuous material taking strategy algorithm; the second control device is used for monitoring and maintaining the intelligent full-automatic system, and is also used for enabling a user to set parameters of the full-automatic ship unloading and monitor full-automatic operation of unloading on the operation terminal.

7. A ship unloader comprising a discharge system according to any one of claims 1-6.