TWM637864U - Self-driving vending car control system - Google Patents

Abstract

A self-driving vending car control system, including a self-driving vending car and a server. When plurality of users send plurality of call requests to the server, a process unit of the server sorts the call requests, and generates a sequence. The server then controls the self-driving vending car to move to plurality of designated locations corresponding to the call requests sequentially according to the sequence.

Description

Unmanned vending vehicle control system

This disclosure relates to a control system, in particular to a control system for an unmanned vending vehicle.

Compared with physical stores or vending machines, the technology of unmanned vending vehicles breaks the limitation of fixed locations; compared with ordinary vending vehicles, it can save the cost of human driving and management. However, in order to maximize the operating benefits of unmanned vending vehicles, their moving routes and stopping locations are important influencing factors.

Some of the existing unmanned vending vehicles are set to cruise on the road, and when passers-by wave to them, they will stop to provide consumer sales services; in addition, some are set to stop at crowded places at specific times. However, the reach of the above methods is limited, and unmanned vending vehicles are limited by the size of the car body, and the goods that can be carried are limited, which can only meet part of the purchase needs. Locations that offer vending services for specific items.

The present disclosure provides an unmanned vending vehicle control system for controlling an unmanned vending vehicle, and the unmanned vending vehicle control system includes a server. The server is communicatively connected to the unmanned vending vehicle and a plurality of terminal devices, and includes a communication unit and a processing unit. The communication unit is used for receiving a plurality of call requests from the terminal devices, and the call requests include information of a plurality of designated locations. The processing unit is coupled with the communication unit, wherein the processing unit is used to sort the call requests and generate a dispatch sequence, and the processing unit sequentially generates a plurality of movement instructions corresponding to the call requests according to the dispatch sequence, The unmanned vending vehicle is sent to the unmanned vending vehicle through the communication unit, and the unmanned vending vehicle sequentially moves to the designated locations corresponding to the call requests according to the movement instructions.

The disclosure further provides a method for controlling an unmanned vending vehicle, which includes the following steps: receiving a plurality of call requests from a plurality of terminal devices, and the call requests include a plurality of designated locations; sorting the call requests to generate a car dispatch sequence; according to the The order of dispatching the car sequentially generates a plurality of movement instructions corresponding to the call requests; sends these movement instructions to the unmanned vending vehicle; and the unmanned vending vehicle moves to the corresponding call request according to the movement instructions some designated places.

The present disclosure also provides a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having at least one instruction stored thereon. When a processing unit executes the instructions, the instructions execute the method for controlling an unmanned vending vehicle.

It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following specific description are exemplary and explanatory only and are intended to provide further explanation of the disclosure as claimed.

100: Unmanned vending vehicle control system

110: server

111: Communication unit

112: Processing unit

120, 120a, 120b, 120c: unmanned vending vehicles

ED1, ED2, ED3, ED4: terminal device

200: Control method for unmanned vending vehicles

S201~S206, S211~S213: steps

CRa, CRb, CRc, CRd: call request

MRa, MRb: movement command

O: Vehicle position

A, B: designated place

Da, Db: moving distance

BPa, BPb: Pre-purchased product information

VPa, VPb, VPc: vehicle product information

In order to make the above and other purposes, features, advantages and embodiments of this disclosure more obvious and easy to understand, the accompanying drawings are described as follows: Figure 1 is a schematic diagram of an unmanned vending vehicle control system according to an embodiment of this disclosure; Figure 2 The figure is a flow chart of an unmanned vending vehicle control method according to an embodiment of the disclosure; FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of an unmanned vending vehicle control system receiving call requests and generating a sequence according to an embodiment of the disclosure; and FIG. 4 is an implementation of the disclosure For example, the schematic diagram of the unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 dispatching the unmanned vending vehicle or arranging the dispatching sequence according to the information of the scheduled purchase commodity required by different call requests.

In order to make the description of the present disclosure more detailed and complete, reference may be made to the accompanying drawings and various embodiments described below, and the same numbers in the drawings represent the same or similar elements.

Please refer to FIG. 1 , which is a schematic diagram of an unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. The unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 includes a server 110, wherein the server 110 is communicatively connected to the unmanned vending vehicle 120 and a plurality of terminal devices ED1 , ED2 , ED3 , and includes a communication unit 111 and a processing unit 112 , and the communication unit 111 and the processing unit 112 are communicatively connected to each other.

In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the communication unit 111 may be a network connection port installed in the server, an antenna or other components with communication functions; the processing unit 112 may be a processor installed in the server, a special Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) or other computing devices; terminal devices ED1, ED2 and ED3 can be mobile devices, computers or other devices with communication functions operated by users.

In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the unmanned vending vehicle 120 is a mobile vehicle with an automatic driving function, and carries commodities for consumers to purchase. For example, the unmanned vending vehicle 120 has a long body such as a truck or a van, and the side of the vehicle body is provided with a door panel that can be lifted up or slide sideways. A consumer can inspect multiple products on display. At this time, the consumer can take one of the commodities to be purchased, and sense that the purchased commodity is removed due to the RFID tag provided on the purchased commodity or a commodity display rack in the unmanned vending vehicle 120. Walking and reducing the load, the unmanned vending vehicle 120 can obtain the information of the purchased commodity. Then, the consumer provides consumer information to the unmanned vending vehicle 120 through mobile device applications, barcodes, proximity cards or other authentication methods. The account is debited to complete the transaction. If the consumer has not registered an online account, or cannot verify his identity for some reason, the unmanned vehicle sales 120 can also provide the consumer to complete the payment by installing a barcode scanner, a credit card swiping machine, a money suction machine, a coin slot machine or other payment means.

Please refer to Figure 2 and Figure 3 at the same time, which are respectively the flow chart of the unmanned vending vehicle control method 200 in an embodiment of the present disclosure, and the unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 in an embodiment of the present disclosure receives the call request CRa, CRb and Generate a schematic diagram of the sort.

As shown in FIG. 2 , the unmanned vending vehicle control method 200 includes steps S201 to S206 , which can be executed by the unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 shown in FIGS. 1 and 3 .

As shown in Figure 3, when a first consumer wants to call the unmanned vending vehicle 120 at a designated place A, and operates the terminal device ED1 to send a call request CRa including the information of the designated place A to the server 110; after that , a second consumer wants to call the unmanned vending vehicle 120 at a designated place B, and operates the terminal device ED2 to send a call request CRb including the information of the designated place B to the server 110 . At this time, the unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 executes step S201, the communication unit 111 first receives the call request CRa from the terminal device ED1, wherein the call request CRa includes the information of the designated location A; then, the communication unit 111 receives the call request CRb from the terminal device ED2 , wherein the call request CRb includes the information of the designated location B, and the communication unit 111 transmits the call request CRa and the call request CRb to the processing unit 112 respectively. Wherein, the information of the designated locations A and B may be the coordinates of the electronic map, the coordinates of the Global Positioning System (GPS), or the relative position relative to the coordinate reference point, etc., which represent the technical means of position information.

Next, the processing unit 112 executes step S202 to sort the call requests CRa and CRb to generate a car dispatch sequence. In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the processing unit 112 generates the dispatch order according to the time of receiving the call requests, that is, the processing unit 112 generates the call requests CRa first in the order in which the call requests CRa and CRb are received. , Call request CRb followed by the dispatching order.

Thereafter, the processing unit 112 executes step S203 to determine whether the call requests CRa, CRb contain information about a product to be purchased. Since the call requests CRa and CRb do not contain information about the goods to be purchased, the processing unit 112 further executes step S204 to sequentially generate a plurality of movement instructions corresponding to the call requests CRa and CRb according to the order of dispatching the car. At this time, the processing unit 112 sequentially generates a movement instruction MRa corresponding to the call request CRa and a movement instruction MRb corresponding to the call request CRb according to the order of dispatching the vehicles. Wherein, the movement instruction MRa includes the information of the call request CRa (for example: the information of the first customer), which also includes the information of the designated location A; similarly, the movement instruction MRb also includes the information of the call request CRa and the designated location B.

Next, in step S205 , the processing unit 112 sequentially sends the movement instructions MRa and MRb to the unmanned vending vehicle 120 through the communication unit 111 . Since the dispatching order is that the call request CRa comes first and the call request CRb comes later, the communication unit 111 will move the car according to the sequence in which the movement instruction MRa corresponding to the call request CRa comes first and the movement instruction MRb corresponding to the call request CRb comes later. The instructions MRa and MRb are sent to the unmanned vending vehicle 120 .

When the unmanned vending vehicle 120 receives the movement instructions MRa, MRb, step S206 is executed, and the unmanned vending vehicle 120 sequentially moves to the designated locations A, B corresponding to the call requests CRa, CRb according to the movement instructions MRa, MRb. Since the communication unit 111 sends out the moving commands MRa and MRb in the order of the moving command MRa first and the moving command MRb later, the unmanned vending vehicle 120 will also receive the moving commands MRa and MRb in this order. Therefore, the unmanned vending vehicle 120 will first move to the designated place A corresponding to the movement instruction MRa, and provide the first consumer with the service of selling goods, and then move to the designated place B corresponding to the movement instruction MRb, and provide the first consumer 2. Services for consumers to sell goods.

According to the above-mentioned embodiment, the unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 can control the unmanned vending vehicle to go to locations A and B sequentially according to the time sequence of receiving the call requests CRa and CRb, so that the first consumer who sends the call request first has priority over The second consumer obtains the service.

However, in an embodiment of the present disclosure, the communication unit 111 receives a vehicle position O from the unmanned vending vehicle 120, and the processing unit 112 calculates a plurality of movement distances of the vehicle position relative to the designated places A and B, and calculates The size produces the dispatch sequence. Wherein, the vehicle location, like the designated location, can be the coordinates of the electronic map, the coordinates of the global positioning system (GPS), or the relative position relative to the coordinate reference point, etc., which represent the technical means of location information.

Please refer to FIG. 3 again. The server 110 can grasp the location of the unmanned vending vehicle 120 at any time through the communication unit 111. In step S202, when the processing unit 112 sorts the call requests CRa and CRb, the processing unit 112 Using the vehicle position O received from the unmanned vending vehicle 120 by the communication unit 111, calculate the moving distance Da from the vehicle position O to the designated location A and the moving distance Db from the vehicle location O to the designated location B and compare them. The moving distance Db is shorter than the moving distance Da, that is, the designated point B is closer to the vehicle position O than the designated point A. Therefore, when the processing unit 112 generates the dispatch sequence, it generates a dispatch sequence in which the call request CRb comes first and the call request CRa follows. After that, in steps S204 and S205, the processing unit 112 generates and sends moving instructions according to the dispatch order; in step S206, the unmanned vending vehicle 120 therefore moves to the designated location B first, and then moves to the designated location A.

According to the above-mentioned embodiment, the unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 can calculate a route with a shorter moving distance according to the designated locations A and B corresponding to the received call requests CRa and CRb, and control the unmanned vending vehicle 120 to follow the route to the designated location in sequence Locations B and A enable the unmanned vending vehicle 120 to complete the task of moving to designated locations B and A within a relatively short distance, saving time and energy consumption.

It should be noted that when there are more than 3 designated places in the movement command that needs to be sorted, the first designated place that is the closest to the vehicle position can be selected first, and then based on the first designated place, the other designated places Select a second designated location closest to the first designated location, and so on, sort out a better route.

Furthermore, factors such as road distribution, traffic conditions, and weather between two points can be taken into consideration when calculating the moving distance, so as to calculate a better route more accurately.

Next, please refer further to FIG. 4 , which is a schematic diagram of an unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 according to an embodiment of the present disclosure, dispatching unmanned vending vehicles or arranging the order of dispatching vehicles according to the information of scheduled purchases required by different call requests. In the embodiment shown in FIG. 4, the unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 includes more than one unmanned vending vehicle, such as three unmanned vending vehicles 120a, 120b, and 120c shown in FIG. 4, among which three unmanned vending vehicles 120a The respective functions and operation modes of , 120b and 120c can refer to the unmanned vending vehicle 120 disclosed in the previous embodiment. The unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 can match the call request with a suitable unmanned vending vehicle according to receiving call requests from different terminal devices ED3 and ED4. Wherein the unmanned vending vehicle 120a is loaded with an eraser product.

In one embodiment of the present disclosure, a third consumer wants to buy a pencil, so the operating terminal device ED3 sends a call request CRc to the server 110, wherein the call request CRc includes a predetermined purchase product information BPa, which records a pencil product information . After the server 110 receives the call request CRc, and sorts the call request CRc to one of the delivery orders of the unmanned vending car 120a, the processing unit 112 executes step S203, and judges that the call request CRc contains the information BPa of the product to be purchased, and therefore further executes step S211, automatically The unmanned vending vehicle 120a receives a vehicle product information VPa, wherein the vehicle product information VPa includes an eraser product information.

Next, in step S212, the processing unit 112 judges whether the scheduled purchase product information BPa matches the in-vehicle product information VPa. Specifically, it is compared whether the product information recorded in each of the scheduled purchase product information BPa and the in-vehicle product information VPa includes the same product.

Since the scheduled purchase product information BPa records the product information of the pencil, and the vehicle product information VPa records the product information of the eraser, the two are not consistent, so the processing unit 112 further executes step S213, and sends the call request CRc from the unmanned vending machine. Excluded from the dispatch sequence of car 120a.

According to the above-mentioned embodiment, since the call request CRc sent by the third consumer includes the information BPa of the product to be purchased, the unmanned vending vehicle can The control system 100 can avoid dispatching the unmanned vending vehicle 120a not loaded with pencil goods to the place designated by the third consumer, saving unnecessary time and cost consumption of both the unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 and the consumer.

In another embodiment of the present disclosure, the unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 further considers the unmanned vending vehicle 120b, which carries a pencil commodity.

Based on the foregoing, the processing unit 112 executes step S213, and after the call request CRc is excluded from the dispatch order of the unmanned vending car 120a, the processing unit 112 adds the call request CRc to the dispatch order of another corresponding unmanned vending car 120b, and Step S203 is further executed, and because the call request CRc includes the scheduled purchase product information BPa, further step S211 is executed to receive a vehicle-mounted product information VPb from the unmanned vending vehicle 120b through the communication unit 111, wherein the vehicle-mounted product information VPb includes the pencil product information.

Next, the processing unit 112 executes step S212, comparing whether the scheduled purchase product information BPa and the vehicle-mounted product information VPb are consistent, and the scheduled Both the ordered product information BPa and the vehicle-mounted product information VPb contain the same pencil product information, so the processing unit 112 jumps to step S204.

In step S204, the processing unit 112 generates a movement command corresponding to the call request CRc according to the dispatch order of the unmanned vending car 120b; then, the processing unit 112 executes step S205, and sends the movement command to the unmanned vending car through the communication unit 111 120b; finally, the unmanned vending vehicle 120b moves to a designated location corresponding to the call request CRc according to the moving instruction.

According to the above-mentioned embodiment, the unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 can provide the third consumer with the service of selling pencil products at the place designated by him. By means of judgment and comparison in steps S203, S211, and S212 of the unmanned vending vehicle control method 200, it is ensured that the unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 provides services for consumers to purchase the commodities they require.

It should be noted that, when step S212 is executed, and the product information to be purchased includes multiple product information, step S212 can be set such that the on-board product information must include all of these product information, and then step S213 can be skipped and step S204 can be executed; It can be set to compare all the multiple unmanned vending vehicles in the unmanned vending vehicle control system, select one of the unmanned vending vehicles with the most matching product information, and put the corresponding call request into its corresponding dispatch information.

In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 further considers the unmanned vending vehicle 120c, which also carries the pencil product.

Based on the foregoing, the scheduled purchase product BPa records the product information of the pencil, and the unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 receives the information from the unmanned vending machine in step S211. Car sales 120b and 120c record the vehicle-mounted product information VPb and VPc of the pencil product.

Next, in step S212 , the processing unit 112 determines that both the vehicle-mounted product information VPb and VPc contain the same pencil product information as the scheduled-to-purchase product BPa.

When there are more than one unmanned vending vehicle carrying commodities that meet the predetermined purchase information, the unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 can combine the foregoing embodiments to calculate the distance between the unmanned vending vehicles 120b and 120c moving to a designated location included in the call request CRc, And add the call request CRc into the dispatch sequence corresponding to the unmanned vending vehicle with a shorter moving distance.

According to the above-mentioned embodiment, the unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 combines the aforementioned two technical means of screening unmanned vending vehicles carrying goods that consumers want to buy, and calculating the moving distance, and further dispatching unmanned vending vehicles that are closer to the location designated by the consumer. Achieve the technical effect of providing the shopping needs specified by consumers and the moving distance of the unmanned vending vehicle is relatively short.

In an embodiment of the present disclosure, in addition to the third consumer sending a call request CRc through the terminal device ED3, it further includes a fourth consumer who wants to purchase an eraser, and operates the terminal device ED4 to send a call request CRd to the server 110, The call request CRd includes the product information BPb to be purchased, and records the eraser product information.

As in the foregoing embodiments, after the unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 receives the call request CRd, since only the unmanned vending vehicle 120a of the unmanned vending vehicles 120a, 120b, and 120c carries the eraser product, the processing unit 112 will filter out the eraser product when performing step S212. Unmanned vending car 120a, and then produce A movement instruction corresponding to the call request CRd is generated and sent to the unmanned vending vehicle 120a, and the unmanned vending vehicle 120a is controlled to move to the location specified by the fourth consumer in the call request CRd.

According to the above-mentioned embodiment, when the unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 receives more than one call request, and these call requests all include the information of the product to be purchased, the processing unit 112 of the server 110 will use the information of the product to be purchased respectively contained in the different call requests , select the unmanned vending vehicle with the same product in the vehicle product information, and then control it to go to the designated place of the corresponding call request, so as to meet the different shopping needs of multiple consumers.

Although several embodiments are described above as an example, the unmanned vending vehicle control system, unmanned vending vehicle control method and non-transitory computer readable storage medium proposed in this disclosure can also be stored in other systems, hardware, software, media or a combination thereof. Therefore, the scope of protection of the present disclosure should not be limited to the specific implementation described in the embodiments of the present disclosure, as defined by the scope of the appended patent application.

It will be apparent to those skilled in the art to which the present disclosure pertains that various modifications and changes can be made in the structures of the present disclosure without departing from the scope or spirit of the present disclosure. In view of the foregoing, the scope of protection of this disclosure also covers the modifications and changes made within the scope of the appended patent application.

100: Unmanned vending vehicle control system

110: server

111: Communication unit

112: Processing unit

120: Unmanned Vending Vehicle

ED1, ED2, ED3: terminal devices

Claims (4)

An unmanned vending vehicle control system, used to control an unmanned vending vehicle, the unmanned vending vehicle control system includes: A server, communication connected to the unmanned vending vehicle and a plurality of terminal devices, the server includes: A communication unit for receiving a plurality of call requests from the terminal devices, and the call requests include information of a plurality of designated locations; a processing unit, coupled with the communication unit, wherein the processing unit is used to sort the call requests and generate a dispatch sequence, and the processing unit sequentially generates a plurality of movement instructions corresponding to the call requests according to the dispatch sequence, The unmanned vending vehicle is sent to the unmanned vending vehicle through the communication unit, and the unmanned vending vehicle sequentially moves to the designated locations corresponding to the call requests according to the movement instructions. The unmanned vending vehicle control system as described in Claim 1, wherein the processing unit generates the order of dispatching vehicles according to the time when the call requests are received. The unmanned vending vehicle control system as described in claim 1, wherein the communication unit is used to receive a vehicle position from the unmanned vending vehicle, and the processing unit is used to calculate a plurality of movement distances of the vehicle position relative to the designated locations, And according to the size of these moving distances, the order of dispatching cars is generated. The unmanned vending vehicle control system as described in claim 1, wherein one of the call requests includes a predetermined purchase commodity information, and the communication unit is used to receive a vehicle-mounted commodity information from the unmanned vending vehicle, and the processing unit is further used to execute: Compare whether the information on the product to be purchased is consistent with the information on the in-vehicle product; When the scheduled purchase product information and the in-vehicle product information match, generate a mobile instruction corresponding to one of the call requests; and When the scheduled purchase product information and the vehicle-mounted product information do not match, one of the call requests is excluded from the dispatch sequence of the unmanned vending vehicle.

Images