Automatic identification system and method for container loading bay position

Abstract

The present invention relates to a container tallying system, and specifically to a container loading bay position automatic identification system and method. The system comprises a PLC controller, a video acquisition device, and a computer, wherein the PLC controller is connected to the computer via a local area network to transmit the position data of the container traveling trolley; the video acquisition device is installed on the container traveling trolley, connected to the computer via a local area network to transmit the loading video data; the computer processes to obtain a preset bay position, displays a visual interface of the preset bay position and a loading video, and supports manual input of bay position information. The method is to calculate the bay position of the container based on the relative displacement between the current container and the previous container traveling trolley, taking the bay position of the previous container as a relative reference. The present invention can improve the accuracy of the box body bay position, reduce the workload of the tally personnel at the loading site, increase the safety factor of the tally personnel, and play a huge role in the container loading operation.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The invention relates to a container tallying system, in particular to an automatic identification system and method for container loading bay positions. Background Art

[0002] The bay position is the specific loading position of the container in the ship, which is generally composed of 6 digits, including position parameters such as row, column, and layer. Identifying the loading bay position of the container is an important task in the container tallying business. Traditionally, the identification of loading bay positions of containers is done by tallying personnel under the container quay crane or next to the hatch of the ship. The labor intensity is high, the working environment is poor, and it is easy to be injured by the passing vehicles. At the same time, there is a risk of falling when working at high altitude. Due to human eye recognition, it is easily affected by objective conditions such as the quality of the employees themselves, the condition of the ship, and the type of the container, and the accuracy is poor.

[0003] The known intelligent tally system's bay position recognition technology basically relies on laser rangefinders for position measurement, which requires the installation of laser scanners, servo motors, motor drivers, GPS antennas and other expensive equipment. Its defects and shortcomings are as follows:

[0004] (1) Due to the influence of the dock environment, the laser rangefinder system is prone to corrosion, and its high price leads to high maintenance costs.

[0005] (2) Due to the high sensitivity of the above-mentioned equipment and the strong corrosiveness of the wharf environment, the failure rate remains high, affecting the normal and stable production of the wharf.

[0006] (3) At the container loading and unloading site, firstly, the ship is easily shaken by the tide; secondly, the bridge crane will also bump and vibrate due to the force; thirdly, due to the difference in ship types, the bottom of the cabin and the lower position will be blocked and there will be blind spots. Affected by the above three factors, the use of laser ranging technology to determine the position of the container will often result in large errors, resulting in inaccurate positioning in actual operations.

[0007] (4) During the container loading process, since the loading position of the container may change from time to time, tally personnel often need to modify the bay position. The above tally systems require manual input of the container number and then the corresponding actual loading bay position to complete the modification. The operation is cumbersome, time-consuming, labor-intensive, and has a high error rate. Summary of the invention

[0008] The technical problem to be solved by the present invention is to provide a professional and intelligent container loading bay automatic identification system and method, which can reasonably decompose various links in the work, improve the management level and work efficiency, and has strong operability, low cost and high accuracy.

[0009] The technical solution adopted by the present invention to solve the technical problem is:

[0010] A container loading bay position automatic identification system comprises a PLC controller, a video acquisition device, and a computer, wherein the PLC controller is connected to the computer via a local area network to transmit automatically acquired position data of a container traveling trolley; the video acquisition device is installed on the container traveling trolley and is connected to the computer via a local area network to transmit real-time captured container loading video data; the computer is provided with a processing unit, a display screen, and an input device to calculate a preset bay position, display a processed preset bay position visualization interface and a container loading video, and input reset bay position information.

[0011] The video acquisition device is connected to the signal conversion device to convert the real-time container loading video data into electrical signals and transmit them to the computer; the computer restores the received electrical signals into container loading video data through the signal conversion device.

[0012] An identification method based on the container loading bay position automatic identification system is performed according to the following steps:

[0013] 1) Start container loading operation;

[0014] 2) If it is the first box, go to step 3; otherwise go to step 4;

[0015] 3) According to the position information of the container trolley, the position of the first container is calculated through an algorithm;

[0016] 4) According to the relative displacement between the current container and the previous container trolley, the previous container's position is used as the relative reference, and the position of the container is calculated by the algorithm. Similarly, the position of the Nth container is calculated by taking the position of the N-1th container as the relative reference coordinate;

[0017] 5) Automatically fill in the current container location on the "Beitu" and play the container loading video at the same time;

[0018] 6) Return to step 4 until the last container is loaded and the operation is completed.

[0019] The system sets up an automatic verification mechanism. After calculating the bay position results in steps 3 and 4, if they are judged to be correct, continue to step 5, otherwise the bay position correction process is executed, such as popping up a bay position correction dialog box and giving a voice prompt at the same time.

[0020] The system sets up a manual verification mechanism. In step 5, after filling in the container position on the "Container Map", the accuracy of the container position is manually verified. If the verification is passed, the next container position calculation process will be executed, otherwise the container position correction process will be executed.

[0021] The method for correcting the bay position is to drag the current container on the "Bay Chart" to move it to the correct position; or select a fixed point of the current container and then select the correct position of the point; or enter the bay position value.

[0022] Compared with the prior art, the present invention using the above technical solution has the following beneficial effects:

[0023] (1) Accurate positioning. The present invention calculates the position of the container according to the relative position between the container traveling trolleys, overcoming the influence of objective factors such as ship shaking, and greatly improving the accuracy of the position of the container;

[0024] (2) The present invention can collect information such as the status and location of each container during loading and unloading, operation time, etc. in real time, realize digital tallying and visual image tallying, and each container retains pictures and video materials, and the data is traceable;

[0025] (3) Low hardware cost. Compared with the traditional method, the software control method of the present invention greatly reduces the hardware cost and maintenance cost;

[0026] (4) Save labor costs. The present invention has the functions of automatic identification of bay positions and automatic judgment and verification. Most business processes do not require manual intervention, which greatly reduces the number of tally personnel and reduces the workload;

[0027] (5) The personnel safety factor is high. Under normal circumstances, the present invention does not require tally personnel under the container quay crane or next to the cabin hatch, which greatly reduces the probability of tally personnel being injured. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0028] Figure 1 This is a schematic diagram of the container loading system framework with the automatic bay position identification system of the present invention;

[0029] Figure 2 The present invention is a flow chart of container loading with the method for automatically identifying the bay position of the present invention;

[0030] Figure 3 It is a flow chart of the method for automatically identifying the bay position of the present invention;

[0031] In the figure: PLC controller 1; panoramic camera 2; computer 3; gun camera 4; camera ball camera 5; Bayer ball camera 6; network switching equipment 7, 8; photoelectric conversion equipment 9, 10. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0032] The present invention is described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings and embodiments.

[0033] See also Figure 1, a schematic diagram of the container loading system architecture, including a camera ball 5 and a gun camera 4 installed on the beam, a panoramic camera 2 installed on the traveling trolley, and a PLC controller 1 and a computer 3 deployed in the machine room, wherein the PLC controller 1, the panoramic camera 2 and the computer 3 are the core components of the automatic bay position recognition system of the present invention.

[0034] The panoramic camera 2 installed on the container traveling trolley shoots the loading video, which is converted by the photoelectric conversion device 10 and the photoelectric conversion device 9, and transmitted to the computer 3 through the network switching device 7 and displayed on the large screen. At the same time, the captured roof number is transmitted to the core recognition software on the computer for roof number recognition.

[0035] The pictures taken by other ball cameras 5 on the beam are transmitted to the core recognition software of computer 3 (while the serial port server is connected to the switch) through the network switching device 8 for box number recognition.

[0036] The bay position ball machine 6 takes bay position video, and the PLC controller 1 transmits the measured data to the computer 3, and the bay position is calculated by the bay position program on the computer 3.

[0037] The network switching device 7 transmits the picture, the identified box number, the roof number, the calculated bay position, etc. to the intelligent tally system (QCM) (not shown in the figure) on the computer of the tally center.

[0038] See also Figure 2 , the container loading process includes the following steps:

[0039] 1. Transmit ship chart, drawbridge PLC data and GPS coordinate data to tally system (QC);

[0040] 2. Query the current container number, operating vessel name, voyage information, etc. from the QC system, and match the ship chart file by the ship name;

[0041] 3. Is this the first operation of the ship? If yes, go to step 4; otherwise, go to step 5;

[0042] 4. Analyze the ship chart file information to obtain the ship size and the arrangement and distribution of each shellfish, and then execute step 5;

[0043] 5. Analyze the position of each container using the automatic position identification method of the present invention;

[0044] 6. Display the location information of the ship captured in real time and save the video data;

[0045] 7. Manually confirm the container position information in the intelligent tally system (QCM), save the container position information of each container, and leave an interface for third-party applications;

[0046] 8. After the loading operation is completed, a loading chart is generated and sent to the relevant parties.

[0047] See also Figure 3 (The dotted line box in the figure is an optional step). The automatic identification method of the shell position of the present invention mainly includes the following key steps:

[0048] 1. First container positioning: After the container loading operation begins, the system displays the preset bay position to the tally clerk in a visual interface based on the trajectory of the container trolley and the loading video shot by the gun according to the algorithm rules. The tally clerk checks the video stream transmitted simultaneously, manually confirms the bay position number and sends it to the system. The system uses the container loading bay position number as the reference coordinate and the basis for future bay position calculations.

[0049] 2. Determine the displacement. The displacement distance of the second loaded container is determined based on the reference coordinate position of the first container and the relative displacement coordinate. The displacement of the container is determined based on the standard width and height of a container. In actual loading operations, the increase or decrease of the walking trolley may exceed or fall short of the standard width and height of one or more containers with non-standard widths and heights. This method uses unique logic to reasonably determine the running amplitude of the walking trolley, combined with the position of the front container, to accurately determine the displacement distance between the second container and the first container.

[0050] 3. Positioning: The ship's bow and stern directions are the container's bay positions, the ship's width direction is the container's horizontal position, and the ship's height direction is the container's height position. Each direction is represented by two Arabic numerals, and a container is positioned by six digits, which corresponds to a three-dimensional point in the ship's space. According to the three-dimensional point of the first box, combined with the displacement distance in step 2, determine the second box's loading position.

[0051] 4. Automatic system verification: If the system determines by default that the recognition is accurate, it will automatically fill in the position on the ship chart. At the same time, the background interface uses graphical processing, and the loaded boxes are simulated and displayed on the ship's position chart and automatically passed.

[0052] 5. Bay position modification. If the system default recognition is inaccurate, a dialog box will pop up and a voice prompt will be given. The interface uses graphical processing. The shipping box is simulated and displayed on the bay position map. The actual position is checked manually in combination with the loading video. If it does not match the position given by the system, the box position can be entered by dragging the mouse on the generated simulation map.

[0053] 6. Determine the displacement of the Nth container. The displacement distance of the Nth loaded container is determined by the relative displacement coordinates according to the reference coordinate position of the N-1th container, and the number of container positions of the container displacement is determined according to the standard width and height of a container. In actual loading operations, the increase or decrease of the walking trolley may exceed or fall short of the standard width and height of one or several containers with non-standard increases or decreases. This method uses unique logic to reasonably judge the running amplitude of the walking trolley, combined with the position of the front box, to accurately judge the displacement distance between the Nth box and the N-1th box.

[0054] 7. Positioning of the Nth container: The ship's bow and stern directions are the container's bay position, the ship's width direction is the container's horizontal position, and the ship's height direction is the container's height position. Each direction is represented by two Arabic numerals, and a container is positioned by six digits, which corresponds to a three-dimensional point in the ship's space. According to the three-dimensional point of the first container, combined with the displacement distance in step 6, determine the Nth container's loading position.

[0055] The automatic container position recognition method of the present invention can improve the accuracy of container position, ensure the accuracy of automatic recognition results by manually verifying the loading video, reduce the work pressure of tally personnel at the loading site, increase the safety factor of tally personnel, and play a huge role in container loading operations.

[0056] The above embodiments are only used to illustrate the technical solution of the present invention rather than to limit it. Any modification or equivalent substitution that does not depart from the spirit and scope of the present invention shall be included in the scope of the technical solution of the present invention.

Claims

1. A method for automatically identifying the position of a container loading system, the container loading system comprising a camera ball camera (5) and a gun camera (4) installed on a beam, a panoramic camera (2) installed on a traveling trolley, and a PLC controller (1) and a computer (3) deployed in a machine room; The panoramic camera (2) installed on the container traveling trolley shoots the loading video, which is converted by the photoelectric conversion device (10) and the photoelectric conversion device (9), and transmitted to the computer (3) through the network switching device (7) to be displayed on the large screen; at the same time, the captured roof number is transmitted to the core recognition software on the computer for roof number recognition; The pictures taken by other dome cameras (5) on the beam are transmitted to the core recognition software of the computer (3) through the network switching device (8) for box number recognition, and the serial port server is connected to the switch at the same time; The bay position ball machine (6) takes bay position video, and the PLC controller (1) transmits the measured data to the computer (3), and the bay position is calculated by the bay position program on the computer (3); The network switching device (7) transmits the image, the identified box number, the roof number, and the calculated bay position to the intelligent tally system QCM on the computer of the tally center; It is characterized in that The automatic identification method of the container loading system is as follows: a. First container positioning: After the container loading operation begins, the system displays the preset bay position to the tally clerk in a visual interface based on the trajectory of the container trolley and the loading video shot by the gun camera according to the algorithm rules. The tally clerk checks the video stream transmitted at the same time, manually confirms the bay position number and sends it to the system. The system uses the container stowage bay position number as the reference coordinate and the basis for future bay position calculations; b. Determine the displacement. The displacement distance of the second loaded container is determined based on the reference coordinate position of the first container and the relative displacement coordinates. The number of container positions to be displaced is determined based on the standard width and height of a container. In actual loading operations, the standard width and height of one or more containers with non-standard increase or decrease of the walking trolley may exceed or fall short. This method uses unique logic to reasonably judge the running range of the walking trolley, and combines the position of the front container to accurately judge the displacement distance between the second container and the first container; c. Positioning: The fore and stern directions of the ship are the container positions, the width direction of the ship is the horizontal position of the container, and the height direction of the ship is the height position of the container. Each direction is represented by two Arabic numerals, and a container is positioned by six digits, which corresponds to a three-dimensional point in the ship space. According to the three-dimensional point of the first container, combined with the displacement distance in step 2, the loading position of the second container is determined; d. Automatic system verification: If the system determines that the recognition is accurate by default, it will automatically fill in the position on the ship chart. At the same time, the background interface adopts graphical processing, and the loaded box is simulated and displayed on the ship's position chart and automatically passed; e. Bay position modification. If the system default recognition is inaccurate, a dialog box will pop up and a voice prompt will be given. The interface uses graphical processing. The shipping box is simulated and displayed on the bay position map. The actual position can be checked manually in combination with the loading video. If it does not match the position given by the system, the box position can be entered by dragging the mouse on the generated simulation map; f. Determine the displacement of the Nth container. The displacement distance of the Nth loaded container is determined based on the reference coordinate position of the N-1th container and the relative displacement coordinates. The displacement of the container is determined based on the standard width and height of a container. In actual loading operations, the increase or decrease of the walking trolley with non-standard width and height of one or several containers will exceed or fall short. By judging the running amplitude of the walking trolley and combining the position of the previous container, the displacement distance between the Nth container and the N-1th container is determined. g. Positioning of the Nth container: The bow and stern directions of the ship are the container's bay position, the width direction of the ship is the horizontal position of the container, and the height direction of the ship is the height position of the container. Each direction is represented by two Arabic numerals, and a container is positioned by six digits, which corresponds to a three-dimensional point in the ship's space. According to the three-dimensional point of the first container, combined with the displacement distance in step six, determine the loading position of the Nth container.

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