Autonomous Mobile Robots for Multi-Level Tote Fulfillment
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional order-fulfillment systems for retail supply chains are labor-intensive due to the lack of automation in handling individual product units (eaches), necessitating a need for highly cost-efficient and flexible systems that can optimize operations for both store-replenishment and direct-to-consumer applications.
Innovation Solution
A multi-level tote storage structure with autonomous mobile robots that transport and place totes, workstations for picker interaction, and input/output interfaces, enabling efficient movement between levels via stationary verticals or ramps, along with machine vision and picker interfaces for precise order fulfillment.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Extent of automation
If conventional manual each-picking processes are used, then system simplicity is maintained, but labor intensity increases and automation is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements autonomous mobile robots that autonomously navigate, locate totes, transport them to workstations, and return empty totes to storage. The robots self-manage their operations including picking up totes from storage locations, delivering them to pickers, and returning to collect more totes, thereby reducing manual labor while maintaining manageable system complexity through automated self-service operations
Solution Approach 2:
The autonomous mobile robots perform multiple functions: they transport totes to workstations, deliver ordered eaches to packing stations, and return empty totes to storage. This multi-functionality increases automation extent while avoiding the need for separate specialized equipment for each task, thereby controlling overall system complexity
2Volume of moving object
If multi-level storage structure with vertical movement is implemented, then space utilization improves, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system transitions from two-dimensional horizontal storage to three-dimensional multi-level storage by adding vertical dimension. Totes are stacked on multiple levels within the storage structure, and autonomous robots navigate between levels using vertical ramps or elevators, thereby significantly increasing storage capacity while managing complexity through standardized vertical access mechanisms
Solution Approach 2:
The system introduces intermediary vertical ramps or elevator mechanisms that mediate between different storage levels. These intermediaries handle the complexity of vertical movement, allowing the main storage structure to focus on capacity while the intermediary components manage the mechanical complexity of multi-level access
Data Source
AI summary
A mobile robot for travelling within an order fulfillment center including a deck and one or more vertical storage racks, a vertical storage rack of the one or more storage racks including a plurality of horizontal rails, spaced apart from each other on respective levels of the vertical storage rack, and a pair of vertical tracks, spaced apart from each other and extending between the plurality of levels of the vertical storage rack, the mobile robot including a motor, a shaft configured to be driven by the motor, first and second pairs of wheels and a pair of drive gears.