Article Transfer Timing Control for Low-Busyness Transport Lines
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing article transport facilities face challenges in efficiently adjusting their operation to match facility busyness levels without requiring extensive changes in control settings, particularly in inter-vehicle cooperation and energy consumption.
Innovation Solution
An article transport facility with multiple transport vehicles and transfer stations, where a transfer operation control unit adjusts the transfer time based on operating state indices, increasing required transfer time during low operational states while maintaining vehicle speed, thereby optimizing vehicle stop times and energy usage.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Use of energy by moving object
If the traveling speed of transport vehicles is changed according to operational busyness, then energy consumption is reduced during quiet periods, but the number of control settings that need to be changed increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the speed control function from the overall system control and implements it locally at each transport vehicle. Each vehicle independently adjusts its speed based on the interval to the preceding vehicle, eliminating the need to change multiple centralized control settings when operational busyness changes. This resolves the contradiction by reducing control complexity while maintaining energy efficiency benefits.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements dynamic speed adjustment where each transport vehicle continuously adapts its traveling speed based on real-time conditions (interval to preceding vehicle). This dynamic control allows the system to respond to operational busyness changes without requiring manual reconfiguration of multiple control parameters, thus reducing control complexity while maintaining energy optimization.
2Use of energy by moving object
If the traveling speed of transport vehicles is reduced during quiet periods, then energy consumption decreases, but the operation rate of transport vehicles decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements dynamic speed adjustment where each transport vehicle continuously adapts its traveling speed based on real-time conditions (interval to preceding vehicle). During quiet periods, vehicles naturally maintain larger intervals and thus travel at lower speeds, reducing energy consumption. During busy periods, vehicles maintain smaller intervals and higher speeds, maintaining operation rate. This dynamic adaptation resolves the contradiction between energy consumption and productivity.
Solution Approach 2:
Each transport vehicle independently controls its own speed based on local conditions (interval to preceding vehicle) without requiring centralized speed control. This self-service approach allows each vehicle to optimize its energy consumption based on actual operational conditions while maintaining overall system productivity through coordinated self-regulation.
3Adaptability or versatility
If multiple control settings are changed to adapt to operational busyness, then the system can be optimized for different operating conditions, but the burden of changing control settings increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the speed control function from centralized system control and distributes it to individual transport vehicles. Each vehicle independently adjusts its speed based on the interval to the preceding vehicle, eliminating the need to change multiple centralized control settings when operational busyness changes. This resolves the contradiction by reducing control complexity while maintaining adaptability.
Solution Approach 2:
Each transport vehicle autonomously adjusts its own operating parameters (speed) based on local conditions without requiring operator intervention or centralized reconfiguration. This self-service capability provides adaptability to operational busyness changes while minimizing the operational burden of changing control settings.
Data Source
AI summary
A transfer operation control unit changes, according to an operating state index indicating a level of an operating state of a plurality of transport vehicles (1) present on a travel path, a setting of a transfer operation such that a required transfer time (Tr) from start to completion of the transfer operation is increased as the level of the operating state is reduced, while maintaining at least one setting of a traveling speed of the transport vehicles (1).