Design and Development of Warehouse Robot

The project aims to automate warehouses for carrying heavy containers from one work station to another work station via specialized warehouse robot along with graphical user interface for scheduling multiple tasks at a time. The robot will move to the given location and lift heavy load at that loadi

Project Title

Design and Development of Warehouse Robot

Project Area of Specialization

Robotics

Project Summary

The project aims to automate warehouses for carrying heavy containers from one work station to another work station via specialized warehouse robot along with graphical user interface for scheduling multiple tasks at a time. The robot will move to the given location and lift heavy load at that loading station and transport it to given unloading station. Real time localization of robot is done by RFID (Radio Frequency Identi?cation Detection). Robot is capable of obstacle detection with emergency stop option to prevent any collision or damage. Its total weight of unloaded robot is about 35 kg and it is capable of lifting weight up to 85 kg in form of ?x shaped containers. It uses DC gear motor for driving and lifting with lead screw mechanism. Overall dimensions of robot are 500mm x 710mm x 180mm. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth is used for wireless communication between the user and robot via a GUI Android Application. The robot will be automatically directed to its charging station when its battery will fall below a certain limit. This system makes warehouse management cost e?ective, e?cient and pro?table.
 

Project Objectives

The main objective of this senior design project is to provide an automated and economic solution to swiftly manage warehouse logistic management operations using a robot. The robot has some signi?cant features that include:
1. Get instructions of loading and unloading stations from a Graphical User Interface designed on a Personal Computer
2. To lift up the load from loading station.
3. To drop the load at unloading station.
4. To move in a mapped warehouse and locate itself using line tracking and Radio Frequency Identi?cation respectively.
5. To continuously monitor its battery level.
6. To automatically move to the charging dock station when needed.
Moreover, another objective as an engineer is to master strategies and tools are used productively and successfully to manage engineering projects, keeping in mind multiple merits with their best and cost-e?ective solutions.
 

Project Implementation Method

This project is especially designed to overcome the ambiguities that are caused by manual work in warehouses and depositories. A detail research was done before starting the project. The feasibility chart along with the cost was formulated to ensure the success factor of the project. Cost is the key factor for the project, as compare to the already commercialized warehouse robot the project is less expensive. The very ?rst aim of the project was to design and fabricate the framework that is stable and ?exible for rough environment of the warehouse. Therefore, motor modeling and designing was done, and control system was developed for the robot movement. As, the major objective of the project of lifting the weight therefore, after undergoing the designing of lead screw and motor for lifting a framework was developed for the balance lifting of the weight. After fabrication and integration of the components and electrical circuits integration was done of electrical and mechanical parts. Moreover, the crucial part of the project was of coding. The coding was done on micro-controller, ?rstly the pseudo code was made then the coding was done for line tracking. Furthermore the next step achieved by coding the weight lifting by the help of ultrasonic sensors. After achieving the major objectives of the project the next tasks were achieved i.e. the robot real time localization, it was done by using RFID. Localization was followed by web server designing, and making of usr friendly interface on web server utilizing Wi-Fi module. Moreover Graphical user interface was also made by using MIT APP Inventor, for this communication was done by using Bluetooth module. Lastly, self charging application was introduce in the robot. The project is suited for uniform containers; hence the container was also designed accordingly.

Benefits of the Project

The robot can be used in warehouses to lift heavy load upto 85kg as instructed by control pane through wireless communication. The robot can be used in packaging industry and shopping centers to assist workers in labor intensive work. The proposed system has open-ended applications and can be further improved by adding other implementations; such as, changing its material so that it can work in extreme environmental conditions and can hold more weight. Moreover to further fortify its abilities weight detection system can also be included.

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

Designing of framework is done after the detailed study of warehouse infrastructure and environment. Keeping the different constrains in mind the robot framework along with the lifting pallet and the dock station was designed on CAD. Lifting box has the dimensions according to the dimensions of robot lifting plate to make stable lifting. Similarly dock station was designed according to the side dimensions of the robot, as the charging plates should be parallel with the plates inside the dock station, therefore careful dimensioning of plates was done. 

The method adopted is weight lifting heavy load by electrical linear actuator. It is designed in a way that the load is on the lifting plate and the lifting plate is help by lead screw to move. When motor is switched on the lead screw is moved up assisting sliders to move up and hence helping in weight lifting. 

A productive feature of the project is self-charging i.e. the robot is able to continuously monitor its battery level and if the battery level falls below a certain prede?ned limit, the robot is able to move to the dock station to get itself charged again before continuing its scheduled tasks.
 

For real time localization of robot passive rfid tagging is used. Every station has an rfid tag which help robot to locate. For communication to user interface bluetooth and wifi module is used. App is designed for giving command to robot.

One of the function that a robot can perform through graphical user interface is schedule multiple tasks. For scheduling multiple tasks, Priority based algorithm is used. If only a single task is chosen from graphical user interface than it will be given highest priority. If command for multiple tasks is given than ?rst process has given highest priority, second task will be given second highest priority and it continues like that. In priority based scheduling, each process is assigned a priority. Process with highest priority is to be executed ?rst and so on. 

Final Deliverable of the Project

HW/SW integrated system

Type of Industry

IT

Technologies

Robotics

Sustainable Development Goals

Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

Required Resources

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