NZ778450B2

NZ778450B2 - Robot assisted personnel routing

Info

Publication number: NZ778450B2
Application number: NZ778450A
Authority: NZ
Inventors: Luis Jaquez; Michael Charles Johnson; Sean Johnson
Original assignee: Locus Robotics Corp
Filing date: 2020-01-31
Publication date: 2024-04-30

Abstract

Systems and methods for robot assisted personnel routing including a plurality of autonomous robots operating within a navigational space, each robot including a processor and a memory storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the autonomous robot to detect completion of a task operation by a human operator, receive status information corresponding to at least one other robot, the status information including at least one of a location or a wait time associated with the other robot, determine, from the status information, at least one next task recommendation for directing the human operator to a next robot for a next task operation, and render, on a display of the robot, the at least one next task recommendation for viewing by the human operator, the next task recommendation including a location of the next robot corresponding to the next task.

Claims

1. A robot assisted personnel routing system comprising: a warehouse management system configured to track a location of a plurality of autonomous robots and a plurality of human operators within a warehouse; wherein for each of the plurality of autonomous robots, the warehouse management system is configured to group a plurality of orders from an order queue of the warehouse management system to form an order set, each order set including one or more items and each item being associated with a pose location in the warehouse; wherein the warehouse management system is configured to assign an order set to each of the plurality of autonomous robots; wherein each of the plurality of robots is configured to pick a plurality of items from the order set assigned to it by the warehouse management system with the assistance of the plurality of human operators, each robot including: a processor; and a memory, the memory storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the autonomous robot to: detect completion of a task operation by one of the plurality of human operators, the task operation being associated with the autonomous robot, receive status information corresponding to a plurality of other robots, the status information including at least one of a location or a wait time associated with the plurality of other robots, determine, from the status information, a next robot recommendation from the plurality of other robots to direct the human operator to perform a next task operation, and render, on a display of the autonomous robot, a location of the next robot recommendation for the human operator to perform the next task operation for viewing by the human operator; wherein the step of grouping by the warehouse management system the plurality of orders for each robot from the order queue to form the order set, includes: retrieving, by a processor of the warehouse management system from a data structure, two dimensional coordinates (x, y) of each of the items in the order set in a coordinate space defined by the warehouse associated with the pose location of each of the items in the warehouse; forming, by the warehouse management system processor for the order set, at least one cluster region defined by a radius, R, about the two dimensional coordinates (x, y) of at least one item from the order set; grouping, by the warehouse management system processor, the order set based on the physical locations of the cluster regions in the warehouse to form the order set; and assigning, by the warehouse management system processor, the order set to the robot by electronically transmitting the order set to an onboard electronic device for the robot.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein: the status information includes an (x,y,z) position of the plurality of other robots within the navigational space, and the next robot recommendation is selected by determining a minimum straight line distance to the plurality of other robots.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the next robot recommendation is selected in response to one or more efficiency factors, including a dwell time of each of the plurality of other robots, a straight-line proximity of each of the plurality of other robots, a number of human operators proximate each of the plurality of other robots, a walking distance to each of the plurality of other robots, a priority of a task associated with each of the plurality of other robots, a congestion proximate each of the plurality of other robots, or combinations thereof.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the next robot recommendation is rendered as an interactive graphic on the display.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein, responsive to human operator input received by the interactive graphic, an expanded graphic is rendered to one or more of provide additional information about the next task operation associated with the next robot recommendation, present additional next robot recommendations to the human operator, or combinations thereof.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the expanded graphic includes one or more additional interactive graphics.

7. The system of claim 4, wherein the interactive graphic is configured to record a selection by the human operator of the next robot recommendation.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the memory further includes storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the autonomous robot to, responsive to the selection of the next robot recommendation, designate the next task operation associated with the selected next robot recommendation as in process within the personnel routing system to avoid redundant recommendation.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the in process designation is removed if the next task operation associated with the selected next robot recommendation is not completed within a prescribed time limit.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the status information is directly received from the plurality of other robots.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the status information is received from a robot monitoring server for monitoring robots within the navigational space, wherein the robot monitoring server is at least one of integrated with at least one of an order-server of the navigational space, integrated with a warehouse management system of the navigational space, a standalone server, a distributed system comprising the processor and the memory of at least two of the plurality of robots, or combinations thereof.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the navigational space is a warehouse.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the at least one next task operation is at least one of a pick operation, a put operation, or combinations thereof to be executed within the warehouse.

14. A method for robot assisted personnel routing comprising: using a warehouse management system to track a location of a plurality of autonomous robots and a plurality of human operators within a warehouse; wherein for each of the plurality of autonomous robots, grouping a plurality of orders from an order queue of the warehouse management system to form an order set, each order set including one or more items and each item being associated with a pose location in the warehouse; and assigning an order set to each of the plurality of autonomous robots; for each of the plurality of autonomous robots, picking a plurality of items from the order set assigned to it by with the assistance of the plurality of human operators, each autonomous robot: detecting, by a processor and a memory, completion of a task operation by one of the plurality of human operators, the task operation being associated with the autonomous robot; receiving, by a transceiver of the autonomous robot, status information corresponding to a plurality of other robots, the status information including at least one of a location or a wait time associated with the plurality of other robots; determining, from the status information, at least one next robot recommendation for directing the human operator to perform a next task operation; and rendering, on a display of the autonomous robot, a location of the next robot recommendation for viewing by the human operator; wherein the step of grouping by the warehouse management system the plurality of orders for each robot from the order queue of the warehouse management system to form the order set, includes: retrieving, by a warehouse management system processor from a data structure, two dimensional coordinates (x, y) of each of the items in the order set in a coordinate space defined by the warehouse associated with the pose location of each of the items in the warehouse; forming, by the warehouse management system processor for each order set, at least one cluster region defined by a radius, R, about the two dimensional coordinates (x, y) of at least one item from a respective order set; grouping, by the warehouse management system processor, the order set based on the physical locations of the cluster regions in the warehouse to form the order set; and assigning, by the warehouse management system processor, the order set to a robot by electronically transmitting the order set to an onboard electronic device for the robot.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the status information includes an (x,y,z) position of the plurality of other robots within the navigational space, the method further comprising: selecting the next robot recommendation by determining a minimum straight line distance to the plurality of other robots.

16. The method of claim 14, further comprising: Selecting the next robot recommendation responsive to one or more efficiency factors, including a dwell time of each of the plurality of other robots, a straight-line proximity of each of the plurality of other robots, a number of human operators proximate each of the plurality of other robots, a walking distance to each of the plurality of other robots, a priority of a task associated with each of the plurality of other robots, a congestion proximate each of the plurality of other robots, or combinations thereof.

17. The method of claim 14, further comprising rendering the next robot recommendation as an interactive graphic on the display.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising rendering an expanded graphic responsive to human operator input received by the interactive graphic to one or more of provide additional information about the next task operation associated with the next robot recommendation, present additional next robot recommendations to the human operator, or combinations thereof.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the expanded graphic includes one or more additional interactive graphics.

20. The method of claim 17, further comprising: recording, by the interactive graphic, a selection by the human operator of a next robot recommendation; and designating, responsive to the recorded selection, the selected task operation associated with the next robot as in process within the personnel routing system to avoid redundant recommendation.