CN118428855A

CN118428855A - Goods picking method, goods picking system, computing device and computer readable storage medium

Info

Publication number: CN118428855A
Application number: CN202410572662.XA
Authority: CN
Inventors: 李洪波; 刘凯; 李金国
Original assignee: Beijing Jizhijia Technology Co Ltd
Current assignee: Beijing Jizhijia Technology Co Ltd
Priority date: 2017-03-29
Filing date: 2017-03-29
Publication date: 2024-08-02
Also published as: CN107025533A; CN107025533B

Abstract

A method of picking goods, a system of picking goods, a computing device, and a computer readable storage medium are provided. The method for picking goods can comprise the following steps: classifying the order to be processed into at least two types of a single piece type, a single multi-piece type or a bulk commodity type; combining at least one type of the at least two types of orders into one or more corresponding type aggregate orders, wherein each of the corresponding type aggregate orders is corresponding to one seeding bit of one seeding wall; dispatching a carrying task for the robot based on the order and the information of the goods on the goods shelf; and at the sorting and distributing station, sorting the goods on the goods shelf into the single container at the sowing position of the sowing wall corresponding to the single according to the corresponding relation information between the goods on the goods shelf and the single. The technical scheme of the application effectively increases the number of the processed orders in unit time, improves the average order processing capability of unit containers in unit time, and reduces the times of carrying the goods shelves by the robot.

Description

Goods picking method, goods picking system, computing device and computer readable storage medium

Technical Field

The present invention relates generally to logistics warehouse technology, and more particularly to a method of picking goods, a system of picking goods, a computing device and a computer readable storage medium in the field of electronic commerce.

Background

The rapid development of electronic commerce and online shopping brings a fast rising opportunity to the logistics and storage industry and also brings unprecedented challenges to the storage and logistics industry. In the traditional warehouse logistics industry, people push the trolley to pick up commodities required by each order, so that people need to walk for a large number of paths, the labor intensity is high, and the efficiency is low.

How to improve sorting efficiency, reduce time from order to delivery and reduce labor burden is always an important problem to be solved in the logistics storage industry.

An important factor in improving picking efficiency is reducing the distance travelled by personnel.

In previous robotic automatic picking systems, the arrival of a good at a person was a more common model. The goods arrival mode is based on an intelligent transfer robot, the robot automatically runs to the position right below a target goods shelf according to order demands and inventory information and lifts the target goods shelf to a sorting station, the sorting station is provided with a display device such as a display screen, the display device prompts goods position information of goods required by a goods allocation order, sorting staff takes down the required goods according to the prompt and places the goods in a specified container so as to complete a sorting task, and the robot returns the goods shelf to the specified position after the sorting task is finished. The goods arrival scheme does not need personnel to walk in the whole process, so that the sorting efficiency is greatly improved, and the labor intensity of personnel is reduced.

Disclosure of Invention

In the robot-based goods-to-person mode, the picking system typically needs to handle the same rack multiple times for batch pick reasons, resulting in increased robot handling effort and reduced system picking efficiency. Therefore, how to effectively reduce the number of times of carrying goods shelves and improve the picking efficiency of the system is the important point of the robot picking system.

According to a first aspect of an embodiment of the present application, there is provided a method of picking goods, for use in a picking system, the system comprising a robot, a pallet and a seeding wall, the seeding wall being provided with at least one seeding site in which a container is provided, the method comprising:

Classifying the order to be processed into at least two types of a single piece type, a single multi-piece type or a bulk commodity type;

Combining at least one type of the at least two types of orders into one or more corresponding type aggregate orders, wherein each of the corresponding type aggregate orders is corresponding to one seeding bit of one seeding wall;

Assigning a transfer task to the robot based on the order and information of the goods on the shelves so that the robot transfers the specified shelf to the specified sorting station;

At the sorting station, sorting the goods on the goods shelf into a collection list container at a sowing position of a sowing wall corresponding to the collection list according to the corresponding relation information between the goods on the goods shelf and the collection list, and storing the container ID of the collection list container, the order information in the collection list corresponding to the collection list container and SKU information corresponding to each order stored in the collection list container in a correlated manner;

And distributing the commodities in the aggregate list container to the order containers corresponding to the orders according to the aggregate list containers filled with the commodities corresponding to the orders in the aggregate list.

According to a second aspect of an embodiment of the present application, there is provided a method of picking goods, for use in a picking system, the system comprising a robot, a pallet and a seeding wall, the seeding wall being provided with at least one seeding site in which a container is provided, the method comprising:

Identifying a bulk commodity type order in the order to be processed, wherein the bulk commodity type order comprises integrally packaged commodities and commodities in bulk form;

Combining bulk commodities in the commodity order with all or part of commodities in other orders to form commodity type collection lists, wherein each commodity type collection list corresponds to one sowing position;

at the sorting and distributing station, sorting the goods on the goods shelf into a single container at a sowing position of a sowing wall corresponding to the commodity type collection list according to the corresponding relation information between the goods on the goods shelf and the commodity type collection list;

And selecting a part of the commodities in the commodity type aggregate list corresponding to the aggregate list container and related to the specific commodity type order to an order packing box corresponding to the specific commodity type order, wherein for each commodity type aggregate list container, according to the stored container ID, the aggregate list in-order information corresponding to the aggregate list container and the SKU information corresponding to each order stored in the aggregate list container, acquiring the aggregate list in-order information corresponding to the commodity type aggregate list container and the SKU information corresponding to each order stored in the commodity type container from the container ID, distributing the commodities in the commodity type aggregate list container to order packing boxes corresponding to different orders, acquiring the whole commodity part in the commodity type order in a whole commodity storage area, and integrating and packing all the commodities of the commodity type order.

According to a third aspect of an embodiment of the present application, there is provided a cargo picking system comprising:

A transfer robot including a lifting mechanism, a camera, and a communication part configured to travel under the shelf and lift the shelf with the lifting mechanism;

A control system including a communication part configured to communicate with the transfer robot and the shelves, the seeding wall, classifying orders to be processed into at least two types of orders of a single piece type, a single multi piece type or a bulk commodity type;

A shelf configured to be transported by the transfer robot, from which the picked party picks up the goods, the bottom of the shelf having an identifier for identification by the transfer robot;

A seeding wall comprising a plurality of seeding sites;

A container placed on a sowing site of a sowing wall, and capable of being removed and carried;

the goods picking system performs the following goods picking method:

According to a fourth aspect of embodiments of the present application, there is provided a computing device for controlling a transfer robot and communicating with a picking party of goods, comprising a memory and a controller, the memory having stored thereon computer executable instructions which, when executed by the controller, are operable to perform the steps of the above method.

According to a fifth aspect of embodiments of the present application there is provided a computer readable storage medium storing computer executable instructions operable to perform the steps of the above method when executed by a computer.

According to a sixth aspect of embodiments of the present application, there is provided a computer program product comprising computer programs/instructions which when executed by a processor implement the steps of the above method.

Compared with the situation that the container at the single sowing position of the traditional sowing wall corresponds to only a single order at a certain time (therefore, 20 containers at the sowing positions correspond to 20 orders at a certain time), the cargo picking system, the cargo picking method, the computing device and the computer readable storage medium according to the embodiment of the invention adopt the way of collecting the orders, the container at the single sowing position of the sowing wall can correspond to the collection order consisting of a plurality of orders at a certain time, the utilization rate of the container is improved, the number of orders processed in a unit time is effectively increased, the average order processing capacity of the containers in the unit time is improved, the times of carrying shelves by a robot are reduced, and the picking efficiency of the system is improved.

With the goods picking system, the goods picking method, the computing device and the computer readable storage medium according to the embodiment of the invention, the single order is subjected to aggregation processing, the storage capacity of a single container is utilized to the greatest extent, and the goods picking efficiency is improved.

By using the goods picking system and the goods picking method according to the embodiments of the present invention, different operations are performed on the whole goods or bulk goods of a bulk goods order, and the bulk goods are collected and processed to improve the picking efficiency; and the whole goods are subjected to secondary supplementary picking, so that the goods are prevented from being frequently put on and taken off by a picking system.

According to the cargo picking system and the cargo picking method provided by the embodiment of the invention, the intelligent carrying robot is used for replacing a manual carrying mode, so that the labor intensity of a cargo picking person is greatly reduced.

Drawings

These and/or other aspects and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent and more readily appreciated from the following detailed description of the embodiments of the invention, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 shows a schematic diagram of the composition and operational context of a picking system 100 for items according to an embodiment of the invention.

Fig. 2 shows examples of wheeled and non-wheeled seed walls.

Fig. 3 illustrates the overall operation of a method 300 of picking items in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 4 illustrates an overall flow chart of a method 400 of picking items according to another embodiment of the invention.

Fig. 5 shows a flow chart of a collective single-second-order unicast method 460 according to an embodiment of the invention.

Detailed Description

The present invention will be described in further detail below with reference to the drawings and detailed description for the purpose of enabling those skilled in the art to understand the invention better.

Before the introduction, the meaning of the terms concerned is explained herein.

SKU: stock Keeping Unit (stock quantity units). I.e., the basic unit of inventory in and out metering, may be in units of pieces, boxes, trays, etc. We have now extended to the abbreviation of product unification number, each product corresponding to a unique SKU number. For the e-commerce, SKU can be understood as follows: 1. the SKU refers to a commodity, and each commodity has a SKU, so that the electric commodity cards can conveniently identify the commodity. 2. A commodity is multicolor, and then has a plurality of SKUs, for example: a piece of clothes has red, white and blue colors, the SKU codes are different, and if the SKU codes are the same, confusion and mispronounced goods can be generated.

A single piece order: each order involves only one commodity.

A single multi-piece order: each order involves multiple items, which may be of one SKU type or multiple SKU types.

Bulk commodity order: in the technical scheme of the disclosure, the whole package is not placed in a sowing position, only the bulk form of goods are placed in the sowing position, and the bulk commodity type orders are combined into one or more collection orders, namely the bulk form of goods related to the order and the bulk form of goods related to other bulk commodity type orders are placed in one sowing position, and the bulk form of goods related to the order and the bulk form of goods related to other bulk commodity type orders are placed in the sowing position, and the bulk form of goods can be bulk goods of the same SKU or bulk goods of different SKUs. For example, the goods related to one order are two boxes of cola plus 5 boxes of bulk cola plus 3 boxes of milk, and at the moment, two boxes of cola plus three boxes of milk can be combined with other orders into a bulk commodity type collection list instead of being placed in a sowing position, and the five boxes of bulk cola plus three boxes of milk are uniformly placed in the sowing position.

The item picking system 100 includes a control system 10, a robot 20, a shelf 30, a collective order container 40, and an order container 50.

Control system 10 may be a computing platform configured by a processor, memory, software, network, etc. components. Control system 10 may provide electronic shopping services to individual users of electronic commerce. The control system 10 may include one or more servers, which may be a centralized control architecture or a distributed computing architecture. The server has a processor 101 and a memory 102, and may have an order pool 103 in the memory 102.

The electronic device 60 used by the user is connected to the control system 10 through a network, the electronic device 60 is generally provided with an electronic shopping application program APP, the user places an order through a shopping user interface of the electronic shopping application program APP, the order is transmitted to the control system 10 through the network, and the control system 10 can store the order in the order pool 103.

Information such as shelf layout, shelf numbers and corresponding positions thereof, shelf goods position numbers and types and quantity of corresponding goods can be stored on a local memory or a remote memory (which can be integrated or distributed) of the control system, and logo information, order information, related information of operation processes and the like of the robot and the system can be stored.

The control system 10 is operable to communicate with the robot 20, the auxiliary display device at the sorting station S, the electronic device 60, the pickers, for example, in a wireless communication technology or a wired communication technology.

The control system 10 can integrate the order and shelf information to provide the transfer robot with task information such as where to go, which shelf to transfer; providing visual indications to the staff; the information interaction between the warehouse picking site and the staff is realized, and the primary decision can be made by integrating the information of the order and the goods placement.

Robot 20 performs cargo handling tasks under the control of control system 10. For example, the robot 20 may move under the target pallet 30, lift the target pallet 30, and transport to the assigned sorting station S. In one example, the robot has a lifting mechanism and an autonomous navigation function, and the transfer robot can travel under the pallet and lift the entire pallet with the lifting mechanism so that the pallet can move up and down with the pallet having a lifting function. In one example, the robot can travel forward according to two-dimensional code information captured by the camera and can travel under a shelf prompted by the control system according to a route determined by the control system 10.

The cargo storage area G has a plurality of shelves 30 on which various kinds of cargo are placed, for example, as in the case of shelves on which various kinds of merchandise are placed as found in supermarkets. The loading personnel can load goods on the goods shelves in the goods shelf area or take goods off the goods shelves.

In one example, the shelves are square shelves and can be divided into multiple layers for placing goods, transported by a transfer robot and picked by a person picking the goods; four frame legs which are symmetrical in position and have a height larger than the height of the robot are arranged at the bottom end of the goods shelf, and the robot is allowed to pass through the bottom of the goods shelf; each layer of the goods shelf is also provided with a corresponding label for identification; and the shelves are arranged in a shelf array with a plurality of rows and columns, and the empty rows/columns form a robot passage. In one example, the bottom of each shelf has a two-dimensional code for the handling robot to recognize, and the two-dimensional code of each shelf has uniqueness; each goods shelf is provided with multiple goods as much as possible, so that each goods shelf can cover as many orders as possible, and the carrying times of the goods shelf are reduced.

The two-dimensional codes with fixed coordinates are arranged on the ground between the shelves, and the robot photographs the two-dimensional codes on the ground through the camera and recognizes the two-dimensional codes, so that the robot can know the position of the robot and perform autonomous navigation.

The aggregate sheet container 40 and the order container 50 may be placed at respective sorting stations S, where a sowing wall may also be provided. The seed wall is preferably easily moved, for example with wheels. The aggregate sheet container 40 and the order container 50 may be placed on different seeding walls. Fig. 2 gives examples of wheeled and non-wheeled seed walls. The seeding wall may have an electronic tag for identification, a display as an auxiliary display device, a container capable of placing one or more orders and goods; the container also has a label, which may be a conventional paper label, such as a bar code, or an electronic label, such as a radio frequency label RFID. The types of the collection single container and the order container are not limited, and the collection single container and the order container can be a turnover box (or called a material box) or a packing box, wherein the turnover box is generally reused and is used for temporarily storing and turnover goods, and the turnover box is usually made of plastic materials; the packing box is usually a paper box which is taken by a user from the hand of an express delivery person, and is used when picking goods, and the paper box is directly packed and sent out without changing the box after picking the goods.

In one example, the aggregate sheet container 40 and the order container 50 may have labels, and the relevant labels may be conventional paper labels, such as bar codes, or electronic labels, such as radio frequency labels, RFID, and the like. The forms of the aggregate sheet container 40 and the order container 50 may be the same or different.

In practice, the control system 10 classifies the order to be processed into at least two types of orders, such as a single piece type, and a bulk commodity type; and combine the same type of order into one or more aggregate orders, wherein each aggregate order is corresponding to one seeding site of one seeding wall. The control system then assigns a transfer task to the robot to transfer the specified shelf to the specified sort station based on the order and information of the items on the shelf, so that at the sort station the items on the shelf are sorted into containers in the specified sowing locations of the specified sowing wall. The robot carries the goods shelves. At the pick-and-place station, items are picked and placed in the aggregate sheet container based on the aggregate sheet information. Next, the items in the aggregate sheet container are re-split into order containers.

The operation of the item picking method 300 according to an embodiment of the present invention is described below with reference to fig. 3. The items are picked into receptacles at one or more sowing locations of the sowing wall, each receptacle having a unique label.

As shown in fig. 3, the item picking method 300 includes an order sorting step S310, a collective order composition step S320, a dispatching shelf transportation task step S330, a shelf transportation step S340, and a collective order picking step S350.

In the order sorting step S310, the order to be processed is sorted into a single piece type, a plurality of piece types, and a bulk commodity type.

In the aggregate list composing step S320, a single-piece type order is combined into one or more single-piece type aggregate lists, a single-piece type order is combined into one or more multi-piece type aggregate lists, and a bulk commodity type order is combined into one or more bulk type aggregate lists, wherein each multi-piece type aggregate list and each bulk type aggregate list are corresponding to one sowing position of one sowing wall.

As mentioned above, with respect to a single-piece order, each order involves only one commodity, so that if such orders are combined into a collective order, the subsequent distribution is very simple, and only one commodity needs to be taken out for packaging.

Thus, in one example, instead of initially determining which single-piece orders to compose a pick-up order from, the correspondence between the composition of multiple-piece pick-ups and the composition of bulk pick-ups and the seeding level of the seeding wall may be determined preferentially, and then, after the control system assigns the shelf handling task and the robot conveys the shelves to the pick-up station for pick-up at the seeding wall, all single-piece orders corresponding to the products are determined for the shelves conveyed to the pick-up station, and then, those single-piece orders are mapped to a seeding level, as to which single-piece orders correspond to a single-piece pick-up, may be determined in real time, e.g., when the pick-up container placed at the seeding level is found to be full, all single-piece orders within the pick-up container are considered to be combined into a single-piece, and then, one single-piece order is placed on the shelf, and then, the process continues until the goods corresponding to the single-piece order is picked up. In other words, the one-piece type collection sheet composition operation, the multi-piece type collection sheet composition operation, and the bulk type collection sheet composition operation in the collection sheet composition step S320 do not need to be completed at approximately the same time, but may be completed in discrete time periods.

In one example, the composition of a single-piece type of collection may be determined while the composition of multiple-piece type of collection and bulk type of collection are determined, and then the single-piece type of collection may be supplemented for new, unprocessed single-piece type of orders at a subsequent pick. More specifically, from the previous determination of a single-piece aggregate sheet composition to the subsequent allocation of pallet handling tasks, pallet handling to the sorting station, and then picking, there is likely to be a considerable period of time that may have passed during which there may be some more single-piece orders to the order pool that have not been processed, for which the following real-time single-piece aggregate sheet composition, picking process, may preferably be performed: for a single-piece goods-picking shelf, temporarily composing a single-piece aggregate list for unprocessed single-piece goods orders and picking, including data matching existing goods in the single-piece goods-picking shelf with unprocessed single-piece goods orders in the order pool, composing the unprocessed single-piece goods orders into a temporary single-piece aggregate list if the matched single-piece goods orders exist in the order pool, taking down the matched single-piece goods orders in the single-piece goods-picking shelf corresponding to the matched single-piece goods orders, placing the single-piece aggregate list in a container at a single-piece aggregate list seeding position of a seeding wall, specifically, determining which single-piece goods orders correspond to a single-piece aggregate list in real time, for example, when the aggregate list container placed at the single-piece aggregate list corresponding to the seeding position is found to be full, considering all single-piece goods orders in the aggregate list container to be composed into one aggregate list, taking the aggregate list, placing the aggregate list container on the single-piece goods-picking shelf, and continuing the process until the single-piece goods-piece aggregate list corresponds to the single-piece goods-picking shelf corresponding to the single-piece goods-picking shelf or the empty goods-picking goods. Of course, this is a simple and preferred option, it is also possible to determine which individual orders are combined into a single-piece type collection sheet and then to sort the goods for the single-piece type collection sheet as instructed by an auxiliary display device, such as a wall attachment.

Specifically, in one example, in the order pool, the individual orders for the racks described above are all assigned to individual aggregate orders sites at the pick-and-place station. Because of the uncertainty in the order in which the racks are handled to the pick-and-place stations, the individual collection units need to be dynamically combined. For example, a first pallet with 5 individual orders carried to the pick-and-place station and a second pallet with 10 individual orders carried to the pick-and-place station, due to bin size limitations, the 5 individual orders in the first pallet and some 4 individual positions in the second pallet are combined into a single aggregate order, the products of which may just fill the bin; the full bin is removed from the sowing wall and then replaced with another empty bin; the remaining 6 orders in the second rack will be combined with the third order to be carried to the pick-and-place rack to form another aggregate order.

It should be noted that, the above operation of judging that the container at the single-piece collection unit sowing position is full, the operation of taking out the full single-piece collection unit container, and the operation of replacing the new single-piece collection unit container may be performed automatically. For example, the container can be monitored by a camera, whether the container is full or not is judged by video analysis and processing, and after the container is full, the container is automatically taken down by a robot (comprising a robot arm), and the robot is automatically replaced by a new single container.

In one example, the aggregation list composition step includes: according to goods shelf commodity storage information, order pool order information, size information of containers of a sowing wall and size information of commodities, an order composition collection list is selected in the order pool, and the collection list and the containers of the sowing wall are bound in a many-to-one mode (a plurality of orders correspond to one container), so that the volume of the containers meeting the sowing wall can accommodate all commodities of the collection list, and goods shelf carrying times are reduced based on order similarity. Here, the size information of the container of the seed wall includes, for example, length, width, and height, and the size information of the commodity includes, for example, length, width, height, volume, weight, and the like. In one example, order similarity is preferably considered when the aggregate list is combined, for example, if a plurality of orders have commodities for the same SKU, the orders are considered to be higher in similarity, the orders can be combined into the aggregate list, and if the corresponding container of the seeding wall is expected to have more space free after the commodity volume is accumulated in the process of combining the aggregate list, orders corresponding to other SKU commodities on the same shelf can be considered as candidates for adding the aggregate list.

In addition, in the process of combining the aggregate sheets, only the portions of non-bulk items in the order are considered when the bulk item order types are combined into the aggregate sheets. The bulk commodity order type combination aggregate order only considers the "bulk" part of the "non-whole box" in the order. For example, one block commodity order is ordered 300 bottles of cola, and a box of cola ("whole goods") has 40 bottles of cola, then the block commodity order consists of 7 whole boxes and 20 bottles of cola, and then the 20 bottles of cola as bulk goods will together form a collection with the bulk goods of other block commodity orders. It should be noted that the bulk commodity order does not need to include only a single SKU commodity, but may include multiple SKU commodities, such as a bulk commodity order, with 300 bottles of customers and 40 bags of roast chicken.

In step S320, a shelf transfer task is assigned, which assigns a transfer task to the robot based on the order and the information of the goods on the shelf to transfer the specified shelf to the specified picking station, so that at the picking station, the goods on the shelf are picked into the containers in the specified sowing site of the specified sowing wall.

In one example, the assigning shelf transport task step S320 may include: and selecting shelves according to the total walking distance of the robot, congestion avoidance and other factors aiming at the collection list corresponding to the sowing wall, wherein the selected shelves can be sequentially transported to the sorting station in the sorting process. For example, a required SKU can be determined from each order in each aggregate sheet, a shelf is selected for the required SKU, and then a shelf transport task is assigned to the robot based on factors such as total distance the robot walks, congestion avoidance, and the like.

In step S330, a rack transport step, i.e., rack transport by the robot, is performed. The robot moves to the target goods shelf according to the route determined by the control system and the control of the control system, lifts the target goods shelf, and then conveys the target goods shelf to the sorting station.

In step S340, an aggregate order picking step is performed, at the picking station, the goods on the shelf are picked into the containers at the sowing positions of the sowing walls corresponding to the aggregate orders according to the correspondence information between the goods on the shelf and the aggregate orders, and the container IDs, the order information in the aggregate orders corresponding to the containers, and SKU information corresponding to each order stored in the containers are stored in association.

In one example, a display is provided on or near the seeding wall, on which is presented information of which seeding site of which seeding wall a commodity of a certain cargo space on a specific shelf should be placed, and the picker takes down the corresponding commodity on the shelf and places it in the designated seeding site according to the presentation of the display. And as picking and placing proceeds, the relevant information is updated at any time, for example, if an item at a certain cargo space on a particular shelf has been placed into a corresponding sowing position on a corresponding sowing wall, a corresponding indication is given on the display to indicate that the picking of the desired item is completed.

As previously described, the individual piece aggregation sheets may be formed in real-time during the real-time picking process, taking into account the specificity of the individual piece aggregation sheets being formed for each individual piece SKU.

Specifically, for example, for a shelf being picked, after all the composed collection sheets have been processed for item picking, the following operations are also performed:

Temporarily forming a single-piece aggregate list and selecting, wherein the step comprises the steps of carrying out data matching on the existing goods in the goods shelves to be selected and the single-piece orders which are not processed in the order pool, forming the single-piece orders which are not processed into a temporary single-piece aggregate list if the matched single-piece orders which are not processed exist in the order pool, taking down the goods corresponding to the matched single-piece goods orders in the goods shelves to be selected, and placing the goods in a container at a single-piece aggregate single sowing position of a sowing wall.

In one example, only one seeding site in the seeding wall is a single piece collective single seeding site.

In one example, the step of composing the aggregate sheets in which a single-piece order is composed into one or more single-piece aggregate sheets is performed dynamically as the pallet is transported to the pick-and-place station.

In one example, dynamically combining an order of a single-piece type into one or more multi-piece type aggregate sheets includes: all or a portion of a one-piece order on a first rack and all or a portion of a one-piece order on a second rack are combined into a one-piece aggregate order for the first rack and the second rack, which are sequentially transported to a sort station over time. This sometimes occurs because the order in which the racks are carried to the pick-and-place station has some uncertainty, so that a single collection sheet requires dynamic assembly. For example, a first pallet with 5 individual orders carried to the pick-and-place station and a second pallet with 10 individual orders carried to the pick-and-place station, due to bin size limitations, the 5 individual orders in the first pallet and some 4 individual positions in the second pallet are combined into a single aggregate order, the products of which may just fill the bin; the remaining 6 orders in the second rack will be combined with the third order to be carried to the pick-and-place rack to form another aggregate order.

In one example, the number of orders in a single piece aggregate sheet, is determined in real time as picking proceeds. For example, when a pallet is moved to a picking station, after the goods on the pallet are picked up, the composition and picking of the single-piece type collection list can be performed in real time, specifically, for example, for the goods at each goods location on the pallet, a scanning gun is held for scanning, then the control system matches the SKU information of the goods with the SKU information of the goods in each single-piece type order in the order pool, as long as the matching is performed, the picker is instructed to pick and place the SKU goods into the bin on the sowing position corresponding to the single-piece type collection list of the sowing wall, so that the goods are scanned in a certain order, matched with the single-piece type order in the order pool, the matched goods are picked up, so that the picking is continued, when the bin is full, an instruction is issued, the composition and picking of the single-piece collection list are indicated, and the bin ID is associated with the single-piece type order information in the bin. The full bin is then removed from the sowing wall, moved away, and replaced with a new bin.

I.e. when the container in which the items of the single-piece type of collection are placed is full, the number of orders and the number of orders in the single-piece type of collection are determined, and the full container is replaced with a new empty container.

As previously described, one or more of the operations of determining that the container at the single-piece collective single-seed position is full, taking the full single-piece collective single-container out, and replacing the single-piece collective single-container with a new one may be performed automatically, such as by a robot hand or robot. Of course, these actions may be performed manually.

According to the cargo picking system and the cargo picking method provided by the embodiment of the invention, a mode of collecting bills is adopted, each collecting bill corresponds to one sowing position of the sowing wall, and cargo picking is firstly carried out by taking the collecting bill as a unit, compared with the traditional mode that one sowing position of the sowing wall corresponds to a single order, the cargo picking system and the cargo picking method effectively increase the number of orders processed by the sowing wall in unit time, improve the order processing capability, reduce the times of carrying shelves by a robot, reduce the carrying distance of the shelves and improve the picking efficiency of the system.

In the item picking method 300 described in connection with FIG. 3, orders are categorized into a single piece type, and a bulk commodity type, and the various types of orders are combined into corresponding aggregate sheets. The number and types of the order classifications are merely examples, and the number of the order classifications may be more or less according to practical situations, for example, the order classifications may be classified into a single-piece type and a single-piece type, or a single-piece type and a bulk commodity type, or may be classified into more types, for example, four types, for example, a single-piece type and a multi-piece type may be further classified into a single-piece type and a multi-piece type in addition to a single-piece type and a bulk commodity type. In addition, other categories than the example order categories described above may also be set as desired.

Fig. 4 illustrates an overall flow chart of a method 400 of picking items according to another embodiment of the invention, with a collection of single-shot, double-split steps S460, as compared to the method of picking items illustrated in fig. 3. The collective single-second-order sub-distribution step S460 is described with emphasis below, and the description of corresponding steps S310 to S350 in fig. 3 can be referred to with respect to the functions and implementations of steps S410 to S450.

In the step S460 of the aggregate single secondary sub-sowing, sub-sowing and packing are performed on the bins filled with the commodities corresponding to the orders in the aggregate single based on the individual orders, so as to finish the final picking.

The following collective fig. 5 describes a collective single-secondary unicast method 460 according to an embodiment of the present invention, which collective single-secondary unicast method 460 can be used for step S460 shown in fig. 4.

As shown in fig. 5, in step S461, for a single-piece collective order container, sent to a packing station, a packing person or a robot takes single-piece SKUs from the container in sequence, each SKU in the container corresponds to an order, and the correspondence between the single-piece SKU and a specific order can be determined based on the stored container ID, the in-collective order information corresponding to the container, and SKU information stored in the container, by scanning the container ID and the single-piece SKU information, for example, with a scanning gun, so that it can be directly packed.

In step S462, the picking system adds a second sub-distribution step to the aggregate sheet of a plurality of sheets before packaging. The method comprises the step of carrying out secondary sorting on the commodities in the collection list by taking the order as a unit. Specifically, for each multiple aggregate order container, the picking system has stored a container ID, the in-aggregate order information corresponding to the container, and the SKU information corresponding to each order stored in the container. Therefore, the secondary distribution personnel (or the robot) can scan the container label number (namely the container ID) to obtain the order information in the collection list corresponding to the multiple collection list containers and the SKU information corresponding to each order stored in the multiple collection list containers. Then, for example, a secondary distributing person (or a robot arm) scans the commodities in the containers sequentially by using a code scanning gun, and distributes the commodities to the containers or packaging boxes corresponding to different orders according to prompts of a display auxiliary system or a voice auxiliary system, and after all the commodities corresponding to the orders are contained in the order packaging boxes, the commodities can be directly packaged.

In step S463, to complete the picking of the bulk commodity order, the secondary distribution is performed on the bulk aggregate order corresponding container and the replenishment is performed on the whole commodity in the whole commodity area. The sub-sowing and the sub-sowing can be carried out without sorting, the bulk collection can be firstly unicast into bulk commodity orders, and then the secondary sub-sorting of whole commodity is carried out for the bulk commodity orders; the whole commodity of the commodity order can be supplemented and sorted for the second time, and then the containers of the commodity type collection list can be distributed for the second time.

Specifically, the secondary distribution of the commodity in the container of the bulk type collection sheet can be performed as follows: for each bulk type collection list container, a secondary distribution person (or a robot) can scan the label number of the bulk type collection list container to obtain order detailed information contained in the container collection list; and sequentially scanning commodities in the containers by a secondary distributing person (or a robot arm), and distributing the commodities to the containers or the packaging boxes corresponding to different orders according to the prompt of the system.

The second pick of whole goods in bulk orders may be performed as follows: the label of the bulk order container is scanned by a secondary distributing person (or a robot) to acquire SKU information and quantity information of bulk commodities to be sorted, so that the whole commodity part is clear, then the bulk commodities can be sorted secondarily in a manual mode or a commodity-to-person mode, and then all commodities of the bulk commodity order are integrated and packaged.

By adopting the cargo picking system and the cargo picking method according to the embodiment of the invention, the quantity of the processed orders in unit time of the sowing wall is effectively increased by adopting the mode of collecting the orders, and the average order processing capacity of unit containers in unit time is improved, so that the times of carrying the goods shelves by a robot are reduced, and the picking efficiency of the system is improved.

By utilizing the goods picking system and the goods picking method according to the embodiment of the invention, the single order is subjected to aggregation processing, the storage capacity of a single container is utilized to the greatest extent, and the goods picking efficiency is improved.

It should be noted that, the aggregate processing of a single order is the most flexible, and various aggregate single processing can be performed as required. As described above, the method can be (1) to combine a plurality of single orders into a single-piece type collection sheet while combining a plurality of single-piece type collection sheets and a bulk type collection sheet, wherein the composition of each single-piece type collection sheet can fully consider the size of a feed box at a sowing wall; (2) The method can also uniformly form a plurality of single orders into a single-piece type collection list while forming a plurality of single-piece type collection list and a plurality of bulk type collection list, wherein the single-piece type collection list can be formed without considering the size of a feed box at a sowing wall, and when the single-piece type collection list really reaches the sowing wall, one single-piece type collection list is split into a plurality of collection lists in real time; (3) The composition of the single-piece aggregate orders may also be deferred until it is done in real-time before the pallet has been transported to the seeding wall of the pick station, as the goods of multiple-piece orders are picked onto corresponding seeding sites, to determine order information and order quantity within the single-piece aggregate orders.

In summary, the present disclosure provides the following technical solutions.

(1) A method of picking goods by robot in a goods-to-person fashion, wherein the robot is to handle a pallet to a seeding wall where one or more goods on the pallet are picked into containers at one or more seeding sites of the seeding wall, each container having a unique label, the method comprising:

an order classification step of classifying an order to be processed into at least two types;

a group order composing step of composing at least one type of order of the at least two types of orders into one or more corresponding types of group orders, wherein each of the corresponding types of group orders is corresponding to one sowing position of one sowing wall;

A step of assigning a goods shelf transport task, wherein the robot is assigned with a transport task based on the order and the goods on the goods shelf so as to transport the appointed goods shelf to an appointed picking and distributing station, so that the goods on the goods shelf are picked into the containers in the appointed sowing positions of the appointed sowing wall at the picking and distributing station;

A shelf carrying step, wherein a robot carries out shelf carrying;

and a collection list selecting step, namely selecting the goods on the goods shelf to a container at a sowing position of a sowing wall corresponding to the collection list according to the corresponding relation information between the goods on the goods shelf and the collection list at the sorting station, and storing the container ID, the order information in the collection list corresponding to the container and the SKU information corresponding to each order stored in the container in a correlated manner.

(2) The method of picking items according to (1), the at least two types comprising at least one of the following items or a combination thereof:

A single piece type, a single multi piece type, and a bulk commodity type.

(3) The method of picking goods according to (2), said at least two types comprising a single piece, said collective single picking step comprising:

For a shelf being picked, after all the items of the single aggregate sheet are picked, the following operations are also performed:

(4) The method for picking up goods according to (3), wherein only one of the sowing sites in the sowing wall is a single-piece collective single sowing site,

The goods sorting method further comprises the step of temporarily reorganizing the single-piece collection sheet, and the method comprises the following steps: after determining that the container at the seeding position of the single-piece collection list is full of commodities corresponding to all orders for placing the single-piece collection list, the commodities of the rest orders of the single-piece collection list are marked into an existing single-piece collection list or form a new single-piece collection list with the new single-piece order;

the filled single-piece aggregated sheet container is removed and replaced with a new single-piece aggregated sheet container, each container having an ID associated with the single-piece order information therein.

(45) The method for picking goods according to (4), wherein one or more of the operation of judging that the container at the single-piece collective single-seed sowing position is full, the operation of taking out the full single-piece collective single-container, and the operation of replacing the new single-piece collective single-container are automatically performed.

(6) The method for picking cargo according to any one of (1) to (4), the at least two types including a single piece type, and a bulk commodity type, the method for picking cargo further comprising:

For a single-piece aggregate container, sent to a packaging station, each SKU in the container corresponds to an order and can be packaged directly;

For each multi-piece container, according to the stored container ID, the information of the order in the container corresponding to the container, and the SKU information corresponding to each order stored in the container, acquiring the information of the order in the container corresponding to the multi-piece container and the SKU information corresponding to each order stored in the multi-piece container, distributing commodities in the multi-piece container to order packaging boxes corresponding to different orders, and directly packaging after all commodities corresponding to the orders are contained in the order packaging boxes;

For each bulk type aggregate list container, according to the stored container ID, the aggregate list in-order information corresponding to the container and the SKU information corresponding to each order stored in the container, acquiring the aggregate list in-order information corresponding to the bulk type aggregate list container and the SKU information corresponding to each order stored in the bulk type container from the container ID, distributing commodities in the bulk type aggregate list container to order packaging boxes corresponding to different orders, acquiring a whole commodity part in the bulk commodity type order in a whole commodity storage area, and integrating and packaging all commodities of the bulk commodity type order.

(7) The method for picking cargoes according to any one of (1) to (4), the aggregation sheet composing step comprising: according to goods shelf commodity storage information, order pool order information, size information of containers of the sowing wall and size information of commodities, an order is selected from the order pool to form an aggregate list, and the orders in the aggregate list and the containers of the sowing wall are bound in many-to-one mode, so that the volume of the containers of the sowing wall can be required to be met to accommodate all the commodities of the aggregate list, and goods shelf carrying times are reduced based on the similarity of the orders.

(8) The method for picking items according to any one of (1) to (4), the step of assigning a rack transfer task comprising: aiming at the collection list corresponding to the sowing wall, according to the total walking distance of the robot and the selected goods shelves avoiding congestion, the selected goods shelves can be sequentially transported to the sorting station in the sorting process.

(9) The method of picking items according to any one of (1) to (4), the at least two types comprising a single piece type, the step of combining orders of a single piece type into one or more single piece type units in the step of combining the unit pieces being performed dynamically as the pallet is transported to the pick-and-place station.

(10) The method of picking items according to (9), said dynamically combining an order of a singleton type into one or more singleton type aggregate sheets comprising: all or a portion of a one-piece order on a first rack and all or a portion of a one-piece order on a second rack are combined into a one-piece aggregate order for the first rack and the second rack, which are sequentially transported to a sort station over time.

(11) According to the method of picking goods of (10), the number of orders and the number of orders in the single-piece aggregate sheet are determined in real time as picking proceeds.

(12) According to the method of picking goods of (1110), when a container of goods in which a single-piece type of collection is placed is full, the number of orders and the number of orders in the single-piece type of collection are determined, and the full container is replaced with a new empty container.

(13) The method for picking up goods according to any one of (1) to (4), wherein a display is provided on or near the sowing wall, on which information of which sowing position of which sowing wall the goods of a certain goods position on the shelf should be placed is presented, and the person for picking up goods takes the corresponding goods on the shelf and places them in the designated sowing position according to the presentation of the display.

(14) A method of picking goods by robot in a goods-to-person fashion, wherein the robot is to handle a pallet to a seeding wall where one or more goods on the pallet are picked into containers at one or more seeding sites of the seeding wall, each container having a unique label, the method comprising:

a bulk commodity type order identification step, which comprises identifying bulk commodity type orders in the pending orders;

A bulk commodity type collection list composing step, namely combining non-whole packaged commodities in bulk commodity type orders and all or part of commodities in other orders into bulk commodity type collection lists, wherein each bulk commodity type collection list corresponds to a sowing position;

A shelf carrying step, wherein a robot carries out shelf carrying;

And selecting the commodity collection list on the goods shelf to the sowing position of the sowing wall corresponding to the commodity collection list according to the corresponding relation information between the commodity on the goods shelf and the commodity collection list at the sorting station.

(15) The method of picking goods according to (14), further comprising:

A second sub-sowing step of the commodity orders of the bulk, wherein the second sub-sowing step is used for selecting the part, which is related to the commodity orders of the specific bulk, of the commodities in the container corresponding to the commodity collection order of the bulk into the container corresponding to the commodity orders of the specific bulk;

Integrating and packaging commodity of the commodity order, integrating all commodities related to the commodity order, and packaging to finish commodity sorting of the commodity order.

(16) The method for picking up goods according to (14),

The step of integrating and packaging the commodity of the commodity order comprises the step of obtaining the whole commodity part in the commodity order in the whole commodity storage area.

(17) A system for picking items, comprising:

The transfer robot is provided with a lifting mechanism, a camera and a communication component, has an autonomous navigation function, can be positioned according to a two-dimensional code on the ground shot by the camera and can travel forwards, can travel to the lower part of the goods shelf, and can lift the whole goods shelf by the lifting mechanism;

a control system having a communication means capable of communicating with the transfer robot, the shelves, and the sowing wall;

the goods shelves are configured to be transported by the carrying robot, the goods picking parties pick goods from the goods shelves, two-dimension codes for the carrying robot to recognize are arranged at the bottoms of the goods shelves, and the two-dimension codes of each goods shelf are unique;

The sowing wall is provided with an electronic tag for identification and a plurality of sowing positions;

containers, each container having a unique label, can be placed on each sowing site of a sowing wall, and can be removed and handled.

(18) The item picking system according to (17), which performs the item picking method of:

A step of assigning a goods shelf transport task, wherein the robot is assigned with a transport task based on the order and the goods information on the goods shelf so as to transport the appointed goods shelf to an appointed picking and distributing station, so that the goods on the goods shelf are picked into the containers on the appointed sowing positions of the appointed sowing wall at the picking and distributing station;

A shelf carrying step, wherein a robot carries out shelf carrying;

(19) The item picking system of (18), further comprising: a display is arranged on or near the sowing wall, prompt information is displayed on the display, the prompt information indicates which sowing position of which sowing wall the commodity of a certain goods position on the goods shelf should be placed into, and the goods picking personnel takes down the corresponding commodity on the goods shelf and places the commodity in the appointed sowing position according to the prompt of the display.

(20) The system for picking goods according to any one of (17) to (19), further comprising a code scanning instrument for a distribution person to scan code labels on the goods in the containers to obtain information of the package boxes corresponding to which order the goods should be distributed again, thereby completing secondary distribution of the goods in the containers corresponding to the collection list.

(21) A computing device for controlling a transfer robot and communicating with a picking party for items, comprising a memory and a controller, the memory having stored thereon computer executable instructions that when executed by the controller are operable to:

a step of assigning a goods shelf transport task, wherein a transport task is assigned to the robot based on the order and the information of goods on the goods shelf so as to transport the assigned goods shelf to an assigned sorting and distributing station, so that at the sorting and distributing station, a goods sorting party sorts the goods on the goods shelf into containers in an assigned sowing position of an assigned sowing wall;

After the robot moves the pallet to the pick-and-place station, pick information is prompted to the pickers, which indicates which of the positions on the pallet to place how many items in the container at which of the sowing positions of the sowing wall.

(22) A computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon computer-executable instructions that, when executed by a computer, are operable to:

An embodiment of the present specification also provides a computer program product comprising computer programs/instructions which, when executed by a processor, implement the steps of the above-described item picking method.

The foregoing is a schematic version of a computer program product of this embodiment. It should be noted that, the technical solution of the computer program product and the technical solution of the cargo picking method described above belong to the same concept, and details of the technical solution of the computer program product, which are not described in detail, can be referred to the description of the technical solution of the cargo picking method described above.

The foregoing description of embodiments of the invention has been presented for purposes of illustration and description, and is not intended to be exhaustive or limited to the embodiments disclosed. Many modifications and variations will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the various embodiments described. Therefore, the protection scope of the present invention should be subject to the protection scope of the claims.

Claims

1. A method of picking goods for use in a picking system, the system comprising a robot, a pallet and a seeding wall, the seeding wall being provided with at least one seeding site in which a container is provided, the method comprising:

2. The method of picking items according to claim 1, in the case where the at least two types include a single piece type, for a rack being picked, after finishing picking items of all single piece collective items, further comprising:

Carrying out data matching on the goods in the goods shelves which are being picked and the single orders which are not processed in the order pool;

If the matched single-piece order which is not processed exists in the order pool, the single-piece order which is not processed is formed into a temporary single-piece aggregate list, and commodities corresponding to the matched single-piece order which is not processed in the goods shelves which are being selected are taken down and placed in an aggregate list container at a single-piece aggregate list sowing position of a sowing wall.

3. The method of picking cargo of claim 2, only one of the seeding sites in the seeding wall being a single collective single seeding site, the method further comprising:

under the condition that the single-piece collection list container at the single-piece collection list sowing position is determined to be full and cannot accommodate commodities corresponding to all orders of the single-piece collection list, the commodities of the rest orders of the single-piece collection list are marked into an existing single-piece collection list or a new single-piece collection list is formed by the commodities of the rest orders of the single-piece collection list and the new single-piece order;

The filled single-piece aggregate single container is removed and replaced with a new single-piece aggregate single container, each single-piece aggregate single container having an ID associated with the single-piece order information therein.

4. A method of picking items according to claim 3, combining a single piece order into one or more single piece aggregate orders is performed dynamically as the racks are transported to the pick-and-place station.

5. The method of picking items of claim 4, dynamically combining an order of a singleton type into one or more singleton type aggregate sheets comprising:

All or a portion of a one-piece order on a first rack and all or a portion of a one-piece order on a second rack are combined into a one-piece aggregate order for the first rack and the second rack, which are sequentially transported to a sort station over time.

6. The method of picking items according to claim 5, wherein the number of orders and the number of orders in the single-piece aggregate sheet are determined in real time as picking progresses.

7. The method for picking cargoes according to claim 6, when the bill container for placing the commodity of the single-piece bill is full, the full bill container is detached from the sowing wall, taken away, and replaced with a new bill container.

8. The method of picking items of claim 1, combining at least one of the at least two types of orders into one or more corresponding types of aggregate orders, comprising:

and selecting orders in the order pool to form a collection list according to the goods storage information of the goods shelf, the order pool order information, the size information of the container of the sowing wall and the size information of the goods, and binding the orders in the collection list with the container of the sowing wall in a many-to-one mode.

9. The method of picking items of claim 1, further comprising:

Aiming at the collection list corresponding to the sowing wall, according to the total walking distance of the robot and the selected goods shelves avoiding congestion, the selected goods shelves can be sequentially transported to the sorting station in the sorting process.

10. The method for picking up goods according to claim 1, wherein a display is provided on or near the sowing wall, the display is provided with information indicating which sowing position of which sowing wall a commodity in a certain position on the shelf should be placed in, and the picking person takes down the corresponding commodity on the shelf and places the commodity in the designated sowing position according to the indication of the display.

11. The method of picking items according to claim 1, wherein, for a collective order container filled with items corresponding to respective orders in the collective order, the items in the collective order container are distributed to the order containers corresponding to the respective orders, comprising:

For a single-piece type collection list container, sending the collection list container to a packing table, enabling each piece of SKU in the collection list container to correspond to an order, distributing each piece of SKU commodity to a corresponding order packing box, and directly packing the order packing boxes;

For each multi-piece container, according to the stored container ID, the in-order information corresponding to the container and the SKU information corresponding to each order stored in the container, acquiring the in-order information corresponding to the container and the SKU information corresponding to each order stored in the container, distributing commodities in the container to order packing boxes corresponding to different orders, and packing the order packing boxes under the condition that all commodities corresponding to the orders are contained in the order packing boxes;

For each bulk type aggregate container, according to the stored container ID, the aggregate in-order information corresponding to the aggregate container, and the SKU information corresponding to each order stored in the aggregate container, acquiring the aggregate in-order information corresponding to the bulk type aggregate container and the SKU information corresponding to each order stored in the bulk type container, and packing all the commodities of the bulk commodity type order under the condition that commodities in the bulk type aggregate container are distributed to the order packing boxes corresponding to different orders and the whole commodity part in the bulk commodity type order is acquired in the whole commodity storage area.

12. The method of picking items according to claim 1, the single piece type comprising only one item per order, the single multiple piece type comprising multiple items per order, the bulk item type comprising at least one item per order involving a unitary package.

13. A method of picking goods for use in a picking system, the system comprising a robot, a pallet and a seeding wall, the seeding wall being provided with at least one seeding site in which a container is provided, the method comprising:

14. The method of picking items of claim 13, further comprising:

And collecting commodities related to all commodity orders, and packaging to complete commodity picking of the commodity orders.

15. A cargo picking system comprising:

A seeding wall comprising a plurality of seeding sites;

the goods picking system performs the following goods picking method:

16. The item picking system of claim 15, further comprising: a display is arranged on or near the sowing wall, prompt information is displayed on the display, the prompt information indicates which sowing position of which sowing wall the commodity of a certain goods position on the goods shelf should be placed into, and the goods picking personnel takes down the corresponding commodity on the goods shelf and places the commodity in the appointed sowing position according to the prompt of the display.

17. The item picking system of claim 15, further comprising a code scanning instrument configured for use by a distribution person to scan code labels on items in the containers to obtain information of an order package to which the item should be reassigned to correspond to, thereby completing a secondary distribution of items in the aggregate sheet corresponding container.

18. The item picking system of claim 15, for a collective order container containing items corresponding to each order within the collective order, the method of distributing items in the collective order container to the order container corresponding to each order, comprising:

19. A computing device for controlling a transfer robot and communicating with a commodity picker, comprising a memory and a controller, the memory having stored thereon computer executable instructions that, when executed by the controller, are operable to perform the steps of the method of any of claims 1-14.

20. A computer readable storage medium storing computer executable instructions which, when executed by a computer, are operable to perform the steps of the method of any one of claims 1 to 14.

21. A computer program product comprising computer programs/instructions which, when executed by a processor, implement the steps of the method of any of claims 1-14.