JPH0258172B2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Field of Application of the Invention] The present invention relates to a loading control device for cargo, etc., and in particular, a system for controlling the loading of cargo of different sizes, such as a palletizing robot. The present invention relates to a cargo stowage work control system suitable for automatically determining the stowage order of cargo that can be stowed without avoiding previously stowed cargo.

[Background of the invention]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an example of the configuration of a cargo loading work system using a palletizing robot. 1A is a palletizing robot, 1B is a pallet, 1C is a device that automatically takes out specified cargo such as in an automatic warehouse, 1D is a supply conveyor that transports cargo, 1E is a cargo confirmation device, 1F
1G is a pallet loaded with cargo, 1H is a pallet supply device, and 1I is a pallet with no cargo loaded. In the above configuration,
Automatic warehouse 1C according to pre-given loading order
From there, the cargo is put into the supply conveyor 1D. On the other hand, the palletizing robot 1A stacks each cargo 1F onto the pallet 1B one after another according to a predetermined operation sequence. When the loading on pallet 1B is completed, pallet supply device 1H
supplies the unloaded pallet 1I to the palletizing robot 1A.

In such a system, if the cargo to be loaded is all of the same size, the palletizing robot 1A can handle it using the teaching playback control method. However, if cargoes of different sizes are stacked on the same pallet and the stacking pattern is different each time, the number of man-hours required for teaching becomes enormous. Therefore, there is a need for a method of automatically generating the cargo loading order and the operation sequence of the palletizing robot 1A from data on the cargo loading arrangement.

As a method for determining the order from layout information data, for example, as shown in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 128095/1984, there is a method that automatically determines the order of drilling mounting holes from component mounting diagram information of a printed circuit board. Are known. However, this method determines the two-dimensional optimal order, and cannot determine the three-dimensional order of items such as cargo such as cardboard boxes.

Conventionally, when determining the loading order from the cargo loading arrangement, from the robot side, (i) from bottom to top; (ii)
The loading order was determined manually based on the priority rules of (iii) from the back to the front and (iii) from the left end to the right end. However, manually determining the optimal loading order not only takes a lot of time but also causes many errors.

On the other hand, loading order and palletizing robot 1
There is a close relationship with the operation sequence (stowage operation route) of A. FIG. 2 is an example showing an operation route for stowing the fourth cargo 2D according to the stowage order determined by the above order determination method. In this case, cargo 2D must be loaded over the already loaded cargoes 2B and 2C.

Therefore, in order to automatically determine the stowage movement route using the conventional method, it is necessary to check for interference with already stowed cargo for each cargo, which requires an enormous amount of calculation time. Furthermore, as in the example shown in FIG. 2, when the cargo is stowed by climbing over the already loaded cargo, the stowage path becomes long, which causes the palletizing robot 1A to take time to load the cargo.

[Purpose of the invention]

The purpose of the present invention is to eliminate the drawbacks of the above-mentioned prior art and to provide a cargo stowage operation control system that automatically generates an optimal stowage order based on stowage position information in order to quickly stow a plurality of cargoes of different sizes. The goal is to provide equipment.

[Summary of the invention]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a palletizing robot that stacks a plurality of cargoes including cargoes of different sizes onto the same pallet, and a loading control device that controls the palletizing robot based on loading control data. and a cargo stowage operation control device consisting of a stowage design support device that creates the stowage control data, based on the information on the dimensions of the cargo and the stowage position information on the pallet. Cargo is loaded and unloaded by sequentially finding cargo where the outward normal lines of three surfaces, one side facing the cargo loading and unloading direction and one of the left and right sides perpendicular to this, are not obstructed by other cargo. The loading order is determined, and the reverse order of the loading and unloading order is set as the loading order.

[Embodiments of the invention]

Hereinafter, specific embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail. FIG. 3 shows the configuration of an embodiment of the present invention, in which 10 is an overall control device, 14 is an overall control memory, 11 is a data input device such as a floppy disk, 12 is a graphic display device, 1
3 is the robot control device, 1A is the palletizing
It's a robot. 21, 22, 23, and 24 are data tables of the general control memory 14, 21 is a stowage design data table, 22 is a stowage position data table, 23 is a stowage order data table, and 24 is a stowage control data table. be.

First, each data table will be explained. Figure 4 shows the structure of the data table 21 for stowage design. This data table 21 contains the cargo code to be stowed, the number of cargoes to be stowed, and its specifications (dimensions, weight) for each pallet. remembered.

FIG. 5 shows the structure of the stowage position data table 22. The cargo number is a unique number assigned to each cargo in the pallet, and the loading position is the coordinates of the X, Y, and Z axes. The stacking direction indicates the longitudinal direction L or the transverse direction S. The loading/unloading flag has the following states: undetermined "0", loading/unloading candidate "1", possible loading/unloading "2", and determined "99". This is used when creating the loading order data, and will be explained in detail later.

FIG. 6 shows the structure of the loading order data table 23, in which cargo numbers and cargo codes are arranged in the order of loading.

FIG. 7 shows the structure of the stowage control data table 24, in which the operating point position, speed, and interpolation method of the palletizing robot 1A are stored for each stowage order. Palletizing robot 1
A executes the stowage operation based on this data.

The overall control device 10 automatically generates stowage order data and stowage control data from the stowage position data. The configuration of the overall control device 10 is shown in FIG. 8, and its operation will be explained below.

In FIG. 8, 31 is a loading data importing unit;
32 is a stowage position data creation section, 33 is a stowage order creation section, 34 is a stowage control data creation section, and 35 is a control data transmission section.

The loading data import unit 31 is connected to the data input device 1
Import the data input from 1 (arrow 41),
It is stored in the stowage design data table 21 (arrow 42).

The stowage position data creation section 32 takes in data for each pallet from the stowage design data table (arrow 43) and displays it on the graphic display device 12 (arrow 52). The operator specifies the pallets to be stowed, and sequentially specifies the cargo code to be stowed, the stowage position, and the stowage direction for the pallets (arrow 53). These designations are made using a light pen or the like. The stowage position data creation section 32 sets this input information in the stowage position data table 22 (arrow 44).

The stowage order creation unit 33 reads the stowage design data and the stowage position data (arrows 45, 54), and creates stowage order data according to the flowchart shown in FIG. First, one cargo that is easiest to load and unload is determined from the loading position data (step 101). The loading/unloading flag in the loading order data table 22 for the cargo is set to "99" (step 102). The cargo number and cargo code of the cargo are stored in the loading position data table 22 (step 103). The above process is repeated until the loading/unloading flags for all cargoes have been determined (step 104). The loading order data table 23 is rearranged, and the reverse of the loading and unloading order is used as the loading order data (step 105). That is, the system determines the loading and unloading order of cargo for one pallet and uses the reverse as the loading order. The method for determining the cargo that is easiest to load and unload will be described in detail later.

The stowage control data creation unit 34 reads the stowage position and stowage order from the stowage position data table 22 and the stowage order data table 23 (arrows 47, 4
8) Find the operation sequence (loading control data) of the palletizing robot 1A for each cargo.

The control data transmitter 35 transmits the stowage control data for one pallet to the palletizing robot 1A. The palletizing robot loads cargo onto pallets based on this data.

By performing the above operations, the overall control device 10 generates the stowage design data 21 and the stowage position data 22.
From this, the loading order data and the operation sequence (loading control data) of the palletizing robot 1A are automatically generated.

Next, a method for determining the cargo that is easiest to load and unload, which is used by the loading order creation unit 33, will be explained in detail.

First, for each cargo on a pallet, a rectangular parallelepiped circumscribing the cargo is set so that the three orthogonal faces of each rectangular parallelepiped are parallel to each other. Next, cargoes whose normal lines directed outward from at least three orthogonal surfaces of each rectangular parallelepiped do not intersect with other cargoes are sequentially determined.
Then, that order is determined as the cargo loading and unloading order. This will be explained using FIGS. 10 and 11. x, y, z with origin at one corner of the palette
Set the coordinates and consider the normal vector in the positive direction of x, y, and z from any point on each surface of a certain cargo on the pallet. If there is no cargo that blocks the normal vector, the surface related to the normal vector is defined as a free boundary surface. Therefore, in the case of FIG. 10, the planes abeg, bcde, and edfg are free boundary surfaces. Other surfaces are not free bounding surfaces because their positive normal vectors are blocked by their own cargo. Also, the free boundary surface is
Cargoes that have a surface area are called candidate cargos for loading and unloading.

To determine whether one side of a cargo is a free boundary surface, stretch the cargo infinitely (actually to the edge of the pallet or to the maximum loading height) in the direction perpendicular to the plane of interest. All you have to do is check whether there is any interference with other cargo. Specifically, as shown in Figure 11, determining whether the plane pqrs of cargo C is a free boundary surface is determined by whether or not it interferes with other cargo when cargo C is stretched as shown by the dotted line. All you have to do is look into it. In this case, cargo C will interfere with cargo D.
The plane pqrs is not a free boundary surface. In FIG. 11, cargo D can be a candidate cargo for loading and unloading.

Figure 12 shows a flowchart of the method for determining the cargo that is easiest to load and unload. First, it is determined whether or not the cargo whose loading/unloading order has not been determined can be a candidate cargo for loading/unloading (step 202). If the cargo is a candidate for loading/unloading, load order data table 2
The loading/unloading flag of No. 3 is set as loading/unloading candidate "1" (step 203). After examining all cargoes whose loading/unloading order has not been determined, if there is only one cargo candidate for loading/unloading, select that cargo as the cargo that is easiest to load/unload;
The loading/unloading flag is set to "2" which allows loading/unloading (step 205). If there are two or more candidate cargoes to be loaded or unloaded, one cargo that can be loaded or unloaded is determined based on the characteristics of the robot (step 206). For example, if the palletizing robot 1A is an articulated type, the cargo closest to the robot can be loaded/unloaded among the candidate cargoes to be loaded/unloaded, and if the palletizing robot 1A is a gate type, the uppermost cargo can be loaded/unloaded. It becomes possible.

The loading order creation unit 33 determines the cargo that can be loaded and unloaded (the cargo that is easiest to load and unload) using the above method, determines the loading and unloading order, and automatically loads the cargo by reversing the loading and unloading order. Determine the order of attachment.

Therefore, when the palletizing robot 1A loads cargo in the loading order determined by this example,
The cargo to be loaded always has three free boundary surfaces, and the palletizing robot 1A can load the cargo without avoiding previously loaded cargo.

〔Effect of the invention〕

According to the present invention, it is possible to automatically determine the optimal loading order of cargo from the loading arrangement of a plurality of cargoes of different sizes, thereby eliminating the need to manually determine the loading order.

Furthermore, when the palletizing robot loads cargo in the loading order determined by the present invention, the palletizing robot can load the cargo at high speed because it can load the cargo without avoiding the previously loaded cargo. effective.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a diagram showing the configuration of a loading system using a palletizing robot, Fig. 2 is a diagram showing the relationship between the loading order and the robot operation sequence, Fig. 3 is an overall configuration diagram of an embodiment of the present invention, and Fig. 4- Fig. 7 is a diagram showing an example of the storage method of various data stored in the storage section in each of the above methods, Fig. 8 is a block diagram of the integrated control device, and Fig. 9 is a processing of the stowage order creation section. FIGS. 10 and 11 are diagrams for explaining the free boundary surface, and FIG. 12 is a flowchart of a method for determining the cargo that is easiest to load and unload. 1A... Palletizing robot, 1B... Pallet, 1F... Cargo, 10... General control device, 13... Robot control device, 14... Memory for general control, 22
...Stowage position data, 23...Stowage order data, 33
...Stowage order creation department.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A palletizing robot that loads multiple cargoes, including cargoes of different sizes, onto the same pallet;
A cargo stowage operation control device comprising a stowage control device that controls the palletizing robot based on stowage control data, and a stowage design support device that creates the stowage control data. , based on the information on the loading position on the pallet, the outward normals of three surfaces, the top surface of the cargo, one side facing the cargo loading/unloading direction, and either the left or right side perpendicular to this, are 1. A cargo loading operation control device that determines the loading and unloading order of cargo by sequentially determining cargo that is not obstructed by the cargo that is unobstructed by the cargo, and sets the reverse order of the loading and unloading order as the loading order.