A system and method for scheduling a cluster of robots for inspecting the track of a belt conveyor.

Abstract

A cluster scheduling system and method for inspection robots on a belt conveyor track is disclosed. The system includes a master control inspection robot and slave inspection robots deployed on the other side of the belt conveyor. The master control inspection robot includes a central control inspection robot. The system comprises five steps: Step 1: The central control platform issues fixed-point inspection tasks; Step 2: The fixed-point inspection tasks are sent to the central control inspection robot; Step 3: The central control inspection robot receives the inspection tasks; Step 4: After receiving the inspection instructions, the master control inspection robot transmits the signals to the slave inspection robots; Step 5: Fault information is uploaded to the central control inspection robot through the master control inspection robot. The central control inspection robot's independent processing capability allows for flexible scheduling of the master control inspection robot and slave inspection robots, enabling fixed-point active inspection, automatic inspection, and same-side task substitution inspection modes. Tasks are decomposed layer by layer, allowing the inspection robots to share some of the information processing capacity, thus improving the timeliness and accuracy of fault identification.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] This invention relates to the field of track-mounted inspection robot technology, specifically to a cluster scheduling system and method for track-mounted inspection robots on a belt conveyor. Background Technology

[0002] With the development of intelligent inspection robot technology, the inspection of belt conveyors is gradually shifting from manual to robotic. However, currently, belt conveyor inspection robots are simply deployed on one or both sides, using onboard cameras and sensors to detect and identify faults. Personnel can only send inspection tasks from their respective robots' host computer control systems, and each robot is only responsible for receiving and executing these tasks. For long-distance belt conveyors, deploying one or two inspection robots cannot meet the inspection needs. Deploying multiple robots results in a complex task distribution process, untimely information processing, and hinders the identification and alarm of sudden conveyor faults.

[0003] Chinese patent CN205098937U discloses a track-mounted inspection robot device, which includes a drive device (Ⅰ), a power supply device (Ⅱ), a detection device (Ⅲ), an automatic charging socket device (Ⅳ), and an automatic charging plug device (Ⅴ). This robot device is mounted on a track and can perform mobile inspections along the equipment line. The inspection robot device provided by this invention is flexible in movement, small in size, and operates stably and reliably, without affecting the maintenance work of belt conveyors in tunnels or the passage of pedestrians. This device reduces the danger and labor costs of manual inspections and lowers the labor intensity of workers. Simultaneously, the device is equipped with sensors for speed, temperature, smoke, and tear detection, enabling real-time monitoring of the belt conveyor throughout its operation, preventing and reducing belt conveyor malfunctions. However, the inspection robot in this patent can only move along the track, resulting in low degrees of freedom and low safety performance.

[0004] Chinese patent CN107175668A discloses an intelligent inspection robot for belt conveyors. This robot is installed inside the belt of the belt conveyor and connected to a drive motor via steel cables. The drive motor pulls the robot along a straight track, allowing it to move cyclically left and right within the belt loop. It detects the temperature and other abnormalities of key components of the belt conveyor, replacing maintenance workers in this task. It enables scheduled and fixed-point inspections of the belt conveyor's operating status, ensuring the safety of personnel and the proper functioning of the conveyor. It features a compact structure, flexible movement, ease of control, rust resistance, pressure resistance, and fatigue resistance. However, the inspection robots in this patent do not form a cluster, making systematic management of multiple robots impossible, resulting in low inspection efficiency. Summary of the Invention

[0005] To overcome the shortcomings of the existing technology, this invention provides a cluster scheduling system and method for belt conveyor track inspection robots. By utilizing a fixed-point distribution, layer-by-layer assignment, and fixed inspection interval inspection mode, it can solve the defects of the existing belt conveyor track inspection mode, reduce the complexity of task assignment for track inspection robots, improve the clustered track inspection robot management mechanism, avoid a series of problems caused by personnel managing inspection robots one by one, and have the advantages of fully utilizing each inspection robot system in automatic inspection mode to comprehensively ensure the real-time status of the inspected equipment, and fixed-point inspection and key focus in active inspection mode.

[0006] The technical solution adopted in this invention is:

[0007] A cluster scheduling system for inspection robots on a belt conveyor track includes a master inspection robot deployed on one side of the belt conveyor and a slave inspection robot deployed on the other side of the belt conveyor. The master inspection robot includes a central control inspection robot. The master inspection robot and the slave inspection robots are connected by bidirectional signals, the master inspection robot and the central control inspection robot are connected by bidirectional signals, and the central control inspection robot is connected by bidirectional signals to the centralized control platform.

[0008] A method for scheduling a cluster of robots for inspecting the track of a belt conveyor includes the following steps:

[0009] Step 1: Issue fixed-point inspection tasks through the centralized control platform;

[0010] Step 2: Send the fixed-point inspection task to the central control inspection robot;

[0011] Step 3: The main control inspection robot receives the inspection task, analyzes the task content, matches it with the relevant section host information, and issues the inspection instruction to the matched main control inspection robot.

[0012] Step 4: After receiving the inspection instruction, the master inspection robot transmits the signal to the corresponding slave inspection robot, and the slave inspection robot receives the task instruction and executes the inspection task.

[0013] Step 5: When the master inspection robot and the slave inspection robots detect a fault, the fault information will be uploaded to the central control inspection robot through the master inspection robot. The central control inspection robot will then upload the fault information to the centralized control platform, and the centralized control platform will issue an alarm.

[0014] The inspection task includes the inspection start time, inspection cycle, and inspection point / section information. The central control inspection robot matches the inspection points / sections based on the quantified inspection point / section information.

[0015] The fault information includes robot number, location coordinates, time, and temperature data.

[0016] Among the master inspection robot and the slave inspection robot, adjacent robots on the same side have the function of task substitution. That is, when the battery of a master inspection robot or slave inspection robot is lower than a set threshold, the charging mechanism is automatically triggered, and the robot stops at the charging pile in the section to charge. The adjacent master inspection robot or slave inspection robot on the same side breaks through the soft limit of the section and enters the section to perform inspection.

[0017] Positioning coordinate points are set on both sides of each segment, and the coordinate point information is embedded in the control program of the inspection robot for this segment. Thus, the inspection robot only runs in this segment, and the robots of adjacent segments are also restricted from entering this segment.

[0018] When the central control inspection robot cannot receive a signal from a master control inspection robot or a slave inspection robot, it sends a mutual inspection command to the adjacent master control inspection robot or slave inspection robot on the same side. The master control inspection robot or slave inspection robot breaks through the soft limit and runs to the vicinity of the coordinate point of the faulty robot. The control platform monitors the appearance status of the faulty inspection robot in real time so that the control personnel can make a preliminary assessment of the problem of the faulty robot.

[0019] Compared with the prior art, the advantages of the present invention are:

[0020] Because the master inspection robot is deployed on one side of the belt conveyor, and slave inspection robots are deployed on the other side, they can be grouped into pairs to divide inspection sections. Furthermore, since the master inspection robot includes a central control inspection robot, the central control robot can schedule all master inspection robots, and each master inspection robot can independently schedule its corresponding slave inspection robots. Inspection tasks can be distributed to the central control robot through the centralized control platform. The central control robot's independent processing capabilities allow for flexible scheduling of both master and slave inspection robots. It enables different inspection modes, including fixed-point active inspection, automatic inspection, and task substitution on the same side. Tasks are decomposed and distributed layer by layer, allowing the master inspection robot and subordinate inspection robots to share some of the information processing capabilities of the central control platform. This gives the master inspection robot and subordinate inspection robots greater freedom, integrates loosely connected individual robots into a unified whole, and eliminates the phenomenon of central control personnel issuing inspection tasks to each robot independently. It facilitates inspection robot data management, standardizes the operation system of multi-robot inspection, and improves the timeliness and accuracy of fault identification. Attached Figure Description

[0021] Figure 1 This is a schematic diagram of the system layout of the present invention.

[0022] Figure 2 This is a flowchart of the active inspection mode of the present invention.

[0023] Figure 3 The flowchart of the automatic inspection mode of this invention is shown below.

[0024] Figure 4 The flowchart of the task substitution scheduling mode of the present invention is shown below. Detailed Implementation

[0025] The present invention will now be described in further detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

[0026] A cluster scheduling system for inspection robots on a belt conveyor track includes a master inspection robot deployed on one side of the belt conveyor and a slave inspection robot deployed on the other side of the belt conveyor. The master inspection robot includes a central control inspection robot. The master inspection robot and the slave inspection robots are connected by bidirectional signals, the master inspection robot and the central control inspection robot are connected by bidirectional signals, and the central control inspection robot is connected by bidirectional signals to the centralized control platform.

[0027] A method for scheduling a cluster of robots for inspecting the track of a belt conveyor includes the following steps:

[0028] Step 1: Issue fixed-point inspection tasks through the centralized control platform;

[0029] Step 2: Send the fixed-point inspection task to the central control inspection robot;

[0030] Step 3: The main control inspection robot receives the inspection task, analyzes the task content, matches it with the relevant section host information, and issues the inspection instruction to the matched main control inspection robot.

[0031] Step 4: After receiving the inspection instruction, the master inspection robot transmits the signal to the corresponding slave inspection robot, and the slave inspection robot receives the task instruction and executes the inspection task.

[0032] Step 5: When the master inspection robot and the slave inspection robots detect a fault, the fault information will be uploaded to the central control inspection robot through the master inspection robot. The central control inspection robot will then upload the fault information to the centralized control platform, and the centralized control platform will issue an alarm.

[0033] The inspection task includes the inspection start time, inspection cycle, and inspection point / section information. The central control inspection robot matches the inspection points / sections based on the quantified inspection point / section information.

[0034] The fault information includes robot number, location coordinates, time, and temperature data.

[0035] Among the master inspection robot and the slave inspection robot, adjacent robots on the same side have the function of task substitution. That is, when the battery of a master inspection robot or slave inspection robot is lower than a set threshold, the charging mechanism is automatically triggered, and the robot stops at the charging pile in the section to charge. The adjacent master inspection robot or slave inspection robot on the same side breaks through the soft limit of the section and enters the section to perform inspection.

[0036] Positioning coordinate points are set on both sides of each segment, and the coordinate point information is embedded in the control program of the inspection robot for this segment. Thus, the inspection robot only runs in this segment, and the robots of adjacent segments are also restricted from entering this segment.

[0037] When the central control inspection robot cannot receive a signal from a master control inspection robot or a slave inspection robot, it sends a mutual inspection command to the adjacent master control inspection robot or slave inspection robot on the same side. The master control inspection robot or slave inspection robot breaks through the soft limit and runs to the vicinity of the coordinate point of the faulty robot. The control platform monitors the appearance status of the faulty inspection robot in real time so that the control personnel can make a preliminary assessment of the problem of the faulty robot.

[0038] like Figure 1 As shown, the long-distance belt conveyor requiring inspection is divided into several sections, each section constituting an inspection zone. A master control inspection robot is deployed on one side of each inspection zone, and subordinate inspection robots are deployed on the other side. One master control inspection robot serves as the core of all the main robots and is called the master control inspection robot. Each inspection robot is numbered; for example, the master control inspection robot is numbered M1, and the remaining master control inspection robots are M2, M3...Mn (n is the total number of robots on one side). The subordinate inspection robots are numbered F1-Fn. Specifically, the inspection robots are equipped with basic communication modules. The master control inspection robot possesses a master control chip with higher computing performance and data processing capabilities, thus it can be considered the core brain of the inspection robot system, responsible for communication with each master control inspection robot. To reduce the data processing and communication burden on the master control inspection robot, each master control inspection robot can communicate with subordinate inspection robots on a single line, enabling one-to-one basic command issuance and status acquisition. Here, the master inspection robot and the slave inspection robot are paired together to jointly undertake the inspection task of a certain section.

[0039] The aforementioned method for scheduling a cluster of inspection robots for belt conveyors is divided into active scheduling inspection and automatic scheduling inspection, referring to... Figure 2 The steps for proactively scheduling inspections are as follows:

[0040] S1: Tasks are issued through the centralized control platform. To meet the needs of fixed-point or section inspection, key information such as inspection coordinates, time nodes and duration are set on the platform, and the task package is issued to the central control inspection robot.

[0041] S2: The central control inspection robot maintains an efficient connection with the platform via a 5G wireless network and can receive instructions from the central control platform in real time;

[0042] S3: After receiving the task instruction, the main control inspection robot extracts key data, automatically matches the corresponding coordinate point according to the issued location information, and forwards the time and coordinate information to the main control inspection robot of that section.

[0043] S4: The main control inspection robot receives the inspection task issued by the central control inspection robot and runs to the target at the specified time node;

[0044] S5: While the master inspection robot is heading to the designated target point, it sends the coordinates to the slave inspection robot. The slave inspection robot ends its current automatic operation mode, runs to the target point, and cooperates with the master inspection robot to achieve two-way monitoring.

[0045] It should be noted that when the designated inspection area is not necessarily within one inspection section, and when the area involves two inspection sections, the central control inspection robot will simultaneously send all inspection robots in the relevant sections to participate in the inspection task.

[0046] In addition, the automatic scheduling inspection mode is an important inspection mode. Its main implementation method is as follows: the automatic inspection mode command is issued by the centralized control platform. The inspection robot will automatically run back and forth in its respective section and continuously monitor the target. When an abnormality is detected in the target, the position is automatically locked and the signal is reported to the central control inspection robot through the main control computer. The central control inspection robot sends the fault coordinate point and machine position number to the centralized control platform. After receiving the fault report information, the centralized control platform locks the fault point and the relevant detection data such as the inspection robot's monitoring screen and audio, and automatically identifies the fault information.

[0047] like Figure 4As shown, when the battery level of an inspection robot falls below a set threshold, the robot activates its automatic inspection mode. In this mode, the charging limit switch on one side of the robot activates. When the robot reaches the charging station, the limit switch is triggered, and the robot's charging contacts automatically connect to the power source for charging. During charging, the robot transmits its charging status signal and charging robot number to the corresponding master control inspection robot. If this robot is the master control inspection robot, the transmission is directly sent to the central control inspection robot. The central control inspection robot automatically activates the soft limit switches (programmed limit switches) on both sides of the charging robot. At this time, adjacent robots on both sides automatically cross the limit switches to replace the charging robot and perform the inspection task. After charging is complete, the central control inspection robot receives a feedback signal, the control limit switches activate, and each robot returns to its designated area to perform its inspection task. Same-side scheduling also includes the following self-checking function for inspection robots: when a robot stops abnormally, the robot sends a fault status code to the central control inspection robot. The central control inspection robot causes the soft limit switch to fail, and dispatches inspection robots on both sides to the faulty robot. The monitoring pan-tilt unit is then turned to monitor the status of the faulty robot, allowing real-time detection of the faulty robot's condition for personnel to make a preliminary judgment on the fault.

Claims

1. A belt conveyor track inspection robot cluster scheduling system, comprising a centralized control platform, a master control inspection robot, at least one master inspection robot and at least one slave inspection robot, characterized in that, The master inspection robot is deployed on the same side of the belt conveyor, and the subordinate inspection robot is deployed on the other side of the belt conveyor; the master inspection robot and the corresponding subordinate inspection robot are connected by bidirectional signals, the master inspection robot and the central control inspection robot are connected by bidirectional signals, and the central control inspection robot and the centralized control platform are connected by bidirectional signals. The central control inspection robot has higher computing performance and data processing capabilities than the master control inspection robot and the subordinate inspection robot. It is used to parse the fixed-point inspection tasks issued by the central control platform, and match the corresponding master control inspection robot based on the quantified inspection point / section information, and issue the inspection instructions to the matched master control inspection robot level by level. The master control inspection robot can single-line schedule corresponding subordinate inspection robots to achieve task decomposition and hierarchical distribution, thus forming a three-level hierarchical scheduling architecture of centralized control platform - master control inspection robot - subordinate inspection robot; the belt conveyor is divided into multiple sections along the inspection track, and positioning coordinate points are set on both sides of each section. The coordinate point information is embedded into the control program of the master control inspection robot and / or subordinate inspection robot of the corresponding section to form a section soft limit, so that the master control inspection robot and / or subordinate inspection robot of the corresponding section only operates within the section under normal conditions; when the battery of a master control inspection robot or subordinate inspection robot is lower than a set threshold or a communication interruption occurs, an automatic fault tolerance mechanism is triggered. The adjacent master control inspection robot or subordinate inspection robot on the same side breaks through the section soft limit and enters the corresponding section to replace the faulty robot or the robot that is charging to perform the inspection task, and synchronizes the replacement execution status to the master control inspection robot.

2. A belt conveyor track inspection robot cluster scheduling method, characterized in that, Includes the following steps: Step 1: Set up positioning coordinate points on both sides of the multiple sections divided along the inspection track of the belt conveyor, and embed the coordinate point information into the corresponding section inspection robot control program to form section soft limit; The centralized control platform issues fixed-point inspection tasks, which include the inspection start time node, inspection cycle and inspection point / section information. Step 2: Send the fixed-point inspection task to the central control inspection robot. The central control inspection robot receives the inspection task and parses it. Based on the inspection point / section information, it matches the corresponding master control inspection robot. The central control inspection robot performs matching through quantified inspection point / section information. Step 3: After receiving the inspection instruction, the master inspection robot transmits the instruction to the corresponding slave inspection robot, which then performs the inspection task. Step 4: When the master inspection robot or the subordinate inspection robot discovers a fault, the fault information is uploaded level by level from the master inspection robot to the central control inspection robot, and then from the central control inspection robot to the centralized control platform. Step 5: When the battery level of a robot is lower than the set threshold or a communication interruption occurs, the automatic fault tolerance mechanism is triggered. The adjacent robot on the same side breaks through the soft limit of the section and enters the section to replace the faulty robot or the robot that is charging to perform the inspection task, and synchronizes the status information to the central control inspection robot.

3. The belt conveyor track inspection robot cluster scheduling method according to claim 2, characterized in that, When the master inspection robot or the subordinate inspection robot detects a fault, the fault information includes at least the robot number, location coordinates, time, and temperature data. The centralized control platform issues an alarm based on the fault information.

4. The method for scheduling a cluster of inspection robots for a belt conveyor track according to claim 2, characterized in that, When the central control inspection robot cannot receive a signal from a master control inspection robot or a slave inspection robot, it sends a mutual inspection command to the adjacent master control inspection robot or slave inspection robot on the same side. The master control inspection robot or slave inspection robot breaks through the soft limit and runs to the vicinity of the coordinate point of the faulty robot. The control platform monitors the appearance status of the faulty inspection robot in real time so that the control personnel can make a preliminary judgment on the problem of the faulty robot.

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