Projected Location Codes for Intralogistics Action Verification
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing intralogistics systems face challenges in ensuring accurate navigation and verification of maintenance actions, as well as efficient material flow tracking, often leading to work avoidance and reliability issues due to the need for constant position determination and reliance on expensive scanners.
Innovation Solution
An intralogistics system that projects location-specific codes using stationary projectors, which are machine-readable and verified by a control system, ensuring actions are performed at the correct location and in the correct sequence, reducing the need for constant position determination and minimizing the use of scanners.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If constant position determination is used to guide persons through the warehouse, then navigation accuracy is improved, but labor and resource consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of having the person's position determined continuously by the system, the patent inverts the approach by having the person actively scan for and read location-specific codes that are projected onto locations. The person carries a reading device that reads these codes to determine their position, rather than the system continuously tracking the person's position through expensive scanners and triangulation methods.
2Measurement precision
If expensive scanners are used for monitoring maintenance actions, then verification accuracy is improved, but system cost increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces expensive, durable scanners with inexpensive, disposable-like projection codes. The location-specific codes are projected onto locations temporarily and can be read by low-cost reading devices carried by persons. This eliminates the need for expensive fixed scanners at every location while maintaining verification accuracy through the machine-readable nature of the projected codes.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent substitutes the mechanical/optical scanning system with a projection-based optical code system. Instead of using physical scanners to read fixed codes or markers, the system projects machine-readable codes onto locations and uses simple reading devices to capture them, replacing complex scanning infrastructure with a more economical projection and reading approach.
3Ease of operation
If location-specific codes are projected onto locations, then navigation guidance is improved, but the system requires machine-readable verification infrastructure
Solution Approach 1:
The patent makes the reading device universal by having it serve multiple functions: it acts as both a navigation aid for persons to find locations by reading projected codes, and as a verification tool for monitoring maintenance actions. The same low-cost reading device carried by the person performs both navigation and verification tasks, eliminating the need for separate specialized infrastructure for each function.
Data Source
AI summary
The disclosure refers to an intralogistics system (10) for monitoring predetermined location-specific action being uniquely associated with one location (68) of a plurality of different locations (68) in the intralogistics system (10) and being uniquely associated with a movable system entity (16), which is to perform the action, wherein the intralogistics system (10) comprises: a control (12) communicating an order (64) being uniquely associated with the action to the movable system entity (16) and being configured for: maintenance (26) of a system component (70) of a plurality of system components (70); material-flow control (30); and/or picking guidance (32); a reading device (24), which the movable system entity (16) carries along and which is connected, for data exchange, to the control (12); and a projector (14) configured to project location-specific codes (34), on command from the control (12), onto several ones of the locations (68) within the intralogistics systems (10); wherein the control (12) is further configured to verify performance of the action based on the order (64) and a received confirmation signal, which is generated by the reading device (24) and transmitted to the control (12) as soon as the reading device (24) has read one of the location-specifically projected codes (34).