Multi-Robot Pick-and-Place Work Area Segmentation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional pick and place systems face issues with unbalanced workloads between robots, leading to inefficiencies and potential conveyor stops due to overlapping and excessive work areas, which conventional counterflow arrangements may not fully address.
Innovation Solution
Limiting the actual work area of robots by defining it as Aac < Ath − (Aol + Aex), where Ath is the theoretical work area, Aol is the overlapping work area, and Aex is the excessive work area, and dynamically adjusting the shape, size, and location of pick and place areas based on past tasks to balance workload.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Area of stationary object
If robots are allowed to operate in their full theoretical work area, then the coverage and potential task capacity increase, but workload becomes unbalanced and collisions occur in overlapping areas
Solution Approach 1:
The theoretical work area is segmented into actual work area (Aac) and excluded areas (overlapping Aol and excessive Aex). Each robot is assigned a specific actual work area that avoids overlapping zones with other robots, thereby preventing collisions and balancing workload distribution across the system.
Solution Approach 2:
Different regions of the theoretical work area are assigned different qualities: the actual work area Aac allows full robot operation with pick and place tasks, while overlapping areas Aol and excessive areas Aex are excluded from robot operations. This local differentiation resolves the contradiction by enabling productive operation only where needed and safe.
2Productivity
If robots operate in excessive work areas beyond pick and place positions, then the theoretical work area is fully utilized, but no productive tasks are performed in those regions
Solution Approach 1:
The excessive work area Aex is extracted and excluded from the actual work area Aac. Robots are prevented from entering these regions where no pick or place positions exist, thereby eliminating wasteful movements and energy consumption while maintaining full utilization of productive areas.
3Productivity
If the most upstream robot picks and places maximum items, then its productivity is maximized, but downstream robots lack sufficient items to fill empty place positions
Solution Approach 1:
The actual work area boundaries are made dynamic and can be adjusted based on real-time system performance and workload distribution. When upstream robots produce excess items that downstream robots cannot handle, the system can dynamically adjust work area allocations to balance the workload and ensure reliable task completion across all robots.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for picking and placing items includes the steps of: providing a picking conveyor transporting items to be picked; providing a placing conveyor to which the items are to be placed; and providing a plurality of robots configured to move the items from pick positions on the picking conveyor to place positions on the placing conveyor. For at least one of the plurality of robots there is defined an actual work area Aac that fulfils the condition Aac<Ath−(Aol+Aex), wherein Ath is a theoretical work area, Aol is an overlapping work area and Aex is an excessive work area of the respective robot. By limiting the actual work area Aac of the robots more than what is done conventionally, the total workload between the robots in pick and place systems may be balanced.