JP2005289527A - Conveyance system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a system capable of integrally controlling a track carriage and a conveyor, and transferring the load without direct communication between the track carriage and the conveyor. <P>SOLUTION: The track carriage and the conveyor are controlled by a common control part, and abnormal occurrence place or guidance is displayed while switching the screen with a hierarchical display by a touch panel of the control part. The conveyor and the track carriage can be integrally controlled, the communication before transferring between them is not required, and the handling is easy in case of occurrence of the abnormality. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to a system including a conveyor and a tracked carriage, and more particularly to enabling the conveyor and the tracked truck to be controlled centrally.

  A system that combines a conveyor and a tracked cart is used for automatic warehouse entry and exit. By the way, the conveyor and the tracked carriage are controlled by separate control units, and these control units are connected to a host controller. Therefore, it is not possible to manage the status of the conveyor and the tracked carriage centrally only at the level of the host controller, and the host controller is usually placed in a monitoring room away from the site, so the conveyor and tracked carriage are installed. These cannot be managed centrally on site. In addition, the conveyor and the tracked carriage need to communicate with each other at the site by infrared communication or the like before transfer, but a communication terminal is necessary, and if the communication terminal fails, the transfer cannot be performed.

The subject of this invention is providing the system which can manage a tracked trolley | bogie and a conveyor centrally, and can transfer without the direct communication between a track trolley | bogie and a conveyor.
An additional problem in the second and third aspects of the invention is to facilitate system maintenance.

  According to the present invention, in a system in which articles are conveyed by a conveyor and a tracked carriage, the tracked carriage and the conveyor are controlled in a unified manner, and a terminal having a human interface is provided. A track carriage control unit, a conveyor control unit, and a storage unit for storing the state of the tracked carriage and the state of the conveyor are provided, the tracked carriage obtains the state of the conveyor from the storage unit, and the conveyor stores the memory The state of the tracked carriage is obtained from the section, and the transfer is performed without direct communication between the tracked carriage and the conveyor. The number of data processing chips (semiconductor elements) in the terminal is arbitrary.

  Preferably, a touch panel is provided as a human interface so that the states of the tracked carriage and the plurality of conveyors are displayed with the normal / abnormal distinction. The touch panel is preferably a touch panel using a color liquid crystal and a pressure sensitive switch.

  Particularly preferably, the display screen of the touch panel is created in a hierarchical structure, and when a conveyor or a tracked carriage displaying an abnormality is touched on the screen, the state is displayed in detail. Here, the hierarchical structure of the screen refers to a structure in which the screen can be sequentially opened from the upper screen to the lower screen.

  In the present invention, the tracked carriage and the conveyor can be managed in a unified manner, so that direct communication between them is unnecessary, communication terminals can be saved, and abnormality due to poor communication does not occur. In addition, the state of the tracked carriage and the conveyor can be collectively displayed on the touch panel, and the display of the abnormality and the processing at the time of recovery can be collectively performed from the touch panel. Furthermore, since the control terminal is different when an abnormality occurs, it does not take time to check the inventory data of articles between the tracked carriage and the conveyor, and data management as viewed from the administrator becomes easy. Moreover, transfer between a conveyor and a tracked carriage can be executed from a single terminal, and system startup and maintenance can be performed without using a host controller.

  In the invention of claim 2, the position where the abnormality has occurred can be immediately confirmed from the touch panel.

  According to the third aspect of the present invention, detailed data such as the content of the abnormality and the countermeasures can be easily viewed from the terminal.

  In the following, an optimum embodiment for carrying out the present invention will be shown.

  1 to 7 show an embodiment. In these drawings, 2 is a transport system using a conveyor, called a conveyor system, and 4 is a system control unit, which is a terminal for controlling the conveyor system 2. The conveyor system 2 is provided with a plurality of conveyors 6 and a tracked carriage 8. Here, seven conveyors 6 and a tracked carriage 8 are shown as an example, but a plurality of tracked carriages may be provided. good. Reference numeral 9 denotes an infrared communication unit, and the tracked carriage 8 communicates with the system control unit 4 via the infrared communication units 9 and 9.

  The conveyor system 2 is a part of an automatic warehouse system. In addition, a stacker crane 10, 10, a crane control unit 12, and a host controller 14 thereof are provided. The host controller 14 is provided in a monitor room different from the floor on which the conveyor system 2 is provided. The host controller 14 is constituted by a personal computer, a server, and the like, and is connected to a host controller and the like via a network (not shown).

  The system control unit 4 is composed of, for example, a computer (control and information processing device) made of PLC and a touch panel 26, and 20 is a conveyor control unit, for example, controlling seven conveyors 6, one conveyor for each conveyor. Suppose there is a process. The cart control unit 22 controls the tracked carriage 8 via the infrared communication units 9 and 9. Since the tracked carriage 8 is one in the embodiment, there is only one tracked carriage process. The state management unit 24 stores the state of each conveyor and the state of the tracked carriage, and the conveyor process and the carriage process write the state of the managed conveyor and tracked carriage to the state management unit 24, and the conveyor and the tracked carriage When the transfer is performed between the status management unit 24, the status of the transfer partner is read out. However, the physical configuration of the state management unit may be arbitrary. For example, each process may store its own state, and other processes may inquire the state of the transfer partner process.

  The touch panel 26 as a human interface is provided with a color liquid crystal display and displays the screens of FIGS. 4 to 7 and the like, and these screens have a hierarchical structure. From the main screen of FIG. The screen shifts to the manual operation screen shown in FIG. When the location of the cause of the abnormality is touched on the abnormality occurrence display screen of FIG. 5, the screen shifts to the explanation screen of FIG. Reference numeral 28 denotes an alarm output, which performs an alarm by a buzzer, an audio guidance, an alarm lamp, and the like, and the host interface 30 performs communication between the host controller 14 and the control unit 4.

  FIG. 2 shows the travel control in the tracked carriage 8. The motor 34 is inverter-controlled via the inverter 32, the position of the tracked carriage 8 is read by the encoder 36, the travel distance is obtained, and the feedback is sent to the inverter 32. Control. The on-board PLC 40 that manages the entire tracked carriage 8 calculates the travel distance to the target conveyor based on the signal from the encoder 36. The on-board PLC 40 controls a transfer device 42 provided in a tracked carriage such as a conveyor, a slide fork, or a SCARA arm.

  FIG. 3 shows the relationship between the conveyor process and the tracked truck process. Each process writes its own state in the state management unit, and stores changes in the state management unit data in a log file, etc. Store the history of each process. In this way, the states of the plurality of conveyors and tracked carriages managed by the control unit 4 are recorded in the state management unit. When transferring a conveyor process or a tracked truck process, the state of the other party is read from the state management unit, and its own state is output to the state management unit. In this way, the conveyor process and the tracked truck process can know the state of the other party, and transfer can be performed without direct communication between the conveyor and the tracked truck.

Each process, in other words, the conveyor control unit and the cart control unit may store their own state separately from the state management unit, and the memory configuration itself of the state management unit is arbitrary. These configurations provide the following effects.
(1) A plurality of conveyors and tracked carriages can be managed in a unified manner.
(2) Stacker cranes have many stopping positions and are complicated in processing. Therefore, the control can be controlled by a control unit different from the control unit for conveyors and tracked carriages, and the scale of the system control unit 4 can be stopped at a design-friendly scale. .
(3) Since direct communication between the conveyor and the tracked carriage is not required, the number of communication terminals can be reduced, and abnormalities due to the failure of these communication terminals can be prevented.
(4) The system controller can centrally control multiple conveyors and tracked carts and manage their status in a centralized manner.
(5) System startup and maintenance can be performed from the controller without using a host controller.

  4 to 7 show display screens of the touch panel of the system control unit. FIG. 4 shows a main screen on the touch panel, schematically showing a stacker crane, a conveyor, and a tracked carriage (RTN-XP). Of these, the objects to be controlled are conveyors and tracked carts, and moving the tracked cart position on the screen complicates the image creation process, so the tracked cart position is fixed and displayed. . In the main screen, you can start or stop the system, perform manual operations, perform maintenance on each part, stop the alarm buzzer, reset the error, etc. If an error occurs, the corresponding conveyor or The track carriage is displayed in different colors.

  Touching a conveyor or a tracked carriage on which an abnormality is displayed from the main screen shifts to the abnormality occurrence screen of FIG. 5. For example, it is assumed here that an abnormality has occurred in the tracked carriage, and the position of the tracked carriage is the current travel position Is displayed, and the FROM position (conveyance source) and TO position (conveyance destination) of the currently executed conveyance data are displayed. In addition, from the “thermal relay trip” on the left side of FIG. Among them, the item in which an abnormality has occurred is displayed in a different color from other items, for example, in red.

  For example, when the cause of the abnormality is “inverter abnormality”, when this item is touched, the screen of FIG. 7 is displayed and guidance on the recovery method is performed. In this way, the abnormality is reset, and if necessary, the tracked carriage is manually operated on the manual operation screen of FIG. As manual operation of the tracked carriage, it is possible to move forward / backward, pass a certain point (point), return to the origin, and drive the conveyor mounted on the tracked carriage to the left or right . In this way, the tracked carriage is manually operated and restored. In addition to this, when manual operation is required for maintenance or the like, the manual operation screen of FIG. 6 is used. Although not shown in the figure, a manual operation screen for transfer between the conveyor and the tracked carriage is provided, and transfer between these can be controlled manually on one screen. Furthermore, a manual operation screen for the conveyor is also provided, although not shown. By using these manual operation screens, in addition to processing at the time of recovery from an abnormality in a conveyor or a tracked carriage, system startup, test running, test transfer, trial transfer, teaching, etc. are performed by the control unit 4. It can be done from.

  In this way, the state of the conveyor system can be monitored on the main screen, and when an abnormality occurs, the occurrence location is displayed in different colors. Then, by touching on the screen a conveyor or a tracked vehicle in which an abnormality has occurred, it is possible to know the cause of the abnormality on the screen for generating an abnormality in FIG. 5 and to know the current state of the tracked vehicle or the conveyor. Further, by shifting to the screen of FIG. 7 or the like, guidance for recovering the abnormality can be received, and if necessary, an abnormality history can be displayed. In addition, it is possible to manually restore the conveyor or track carriage from the manual operation screen.

In the embodiment, since a plurality of conveyors and tracked carriages can be controlled by a single control unit, these states can be centrally displayed on the touch panel. On the other hand, if the conveyor and the tracked carriage are controlled by different control units, the overall system status can be grasped for the first time by a host controller in a monitor room away from the conveyor system. Furthermore, it is possible to manually operate a conveyor or a tracked carriage using a manual operation screen of the control terminal, and to perform a running test, a transfer test, and the like.

Block diagram showing the control system of the conveyor system of the embodiment Block diagram showing the control system of the tracked carriage used in the example The figure which shows the model of interprocess communication in the execution example The figure which shows the main screen with the fixed terminal which is used in the execution example Figure showing the screen of the fixed terminal when an abnormality occurs The figure which shows the screen of the fixed terminal at the time of manual operation The figure which shows the guidance screen for abnormality of the fixed terminal

Explanation of symbols

2 Conveyor system 4 System control unit 6 Conveyor 8 Tracked carriage 9 Infrared communication unit 10 Stacker crane 12 Crane control unit 14 Host controller 20 Conveyor control unit 22 Cart control unit 24 Status management unit 26 Touch panel 28 Alarm output 30 Host interface 32 Inverter 34 Motor 36 Encoder 40 On-board PLC
42 Transfer equipment

Claims (3)

In a system in which goods are conveyed by a conveyor and a tracked carriage,
A terminal having a human interface is provided for centrally controlling the tracked carriage and the conveyor, and the terminal is provided with a control unit for the tracked carriage, a control unit for the conveyor, a state of the tracked carriage, and a state of the conveyor. A storage unit for storing the state, the tracked carriage finds the status of the conveyor from the storage unit, the conveyor determines the status of the tracked carriage from the storage unit, and there is no direct communication between the tracked carriage and the conveyor A transfer system characterized in that the transfer is performed at The transport system according to claim 1, wherein a touch panel as a human interface is provided on the terminal so that the states of the tracked carriage and the conveyor are distinguished from normal / abnormal. The display screen of the touch panel is created in a hierarchical structure, and when a conveyor or a tracked carriage displaying an abnormality is touched on the screen, the state is displayed in detail. Conveying system.

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