Home > News > Company News

Case Study VisionNav Robotics' New Project Landed in Food Storage Industry

2022-04-15
News - Company News

In early April, VisionNav Robotics, a global leader in industrial unmanned vehicles, launched a new project in the food storage industry to help customers reduce expenses, increase efficiency and create higher value.

 

Project Overview

The project is located in South China, and the customer mainly focuses on the grain and oil storage business. As is known, Grain and oil storage has strict standards for storage and transportation facilities. Therefore, the customer requires that the unmanned upgrade of logistics should be completed without changing the existing warehouse.

 

 

Project Difficulties

  • There are two types of storage racks in the customer's warehouse: beam racks and drive-in racks. Different rack types have different access methods for goods, in addition, the material pallets are non-standard, which cannot be solved by standardized autonomous forklift solutions;
  • The width of the main aisle of the customer's warehouse is less than 3m, and the maximum lifting height of the goods cannot exceed 4.5m. It is difficult to complete the transfer and storage of 1.5t materials in a limited space;
  •  The customer's grain and oil warehouse is a low-temperature environment, so the autonomous forklift may encounter an environmental temperature difference of up to 15°C when carrying out material handling operations in and out of the warehouse;
  •  The project site is equipped with hoists and roller lines, which requires a seamless connection between unmanned forklifts and various automation equipment;

 

Project Flow

After understanding the needs of customers, VisionNav Robotics has introduced a customized and highly flexible unmanned logistics solution. At the same time, it was also equipped with two R series reach truck unmanned forklifts and a robot control scheduling system, which finally realized the unmanned logistics upgrade of grain and oil storage.


Process 1: Hoist - Roller Line Outlet - Warehouse Storage
The materials are sent from the platform on the first floor to the fourth floor through the hoist and then sent to the outlet port through the roller line. The photoelectric scanning of the goods' size information at the exit of the conveyor line is fed back to the robot control scheduling system of VisionNav Robotics. The robot control scheduling system will obtain the material size information, and then send it to the autonomous forklift. Then the unmanned forklift will run to the outlet port to pick up the material and transport it to the corresponding warehouse location for storage.


Process 2: Warehouse Picking - Roller Line Outlet – Hoist

When the unmanned forklift of VisionNav Robotics receives the outbound demand, the robot control scheduling system will connect with the customer's WCS system, and send back the storage location and goods information to the unmanned forklift, then the unmanned forklift will go to the corresponding warehouse to pick up the materials. At last, the goods are transported to the discharge port of the roller line for unloading.

 


Project Highlights
Highlight 1: High positioning and Perception Ability of Autonomous forklifts

When the unmanned forklift of VisionNav Robotics is docked with the conveyor line, and the conveyor line has no fixed block, which requires high precision for the repeated parking position of the unmanned forklift. Once the parking position is not accurate, the fork operations will be taken out incorrectly, it not only reduces the logistics efficiency but also may cause a huge loss of goods.

 

VisionNav Robotics' unmanned forklift has high positioning, perception, and control capabilities, and it can adaptively adjust its posture and the posture of the end of the fork arm when it is about to stop, it can accurately pick up/unload from the roller line to avoid accidents caused by friction collision with the conveyor line.


Highlight 2: Adaptive to Drive-in Racks of Materials Storage

In addition to the common beam racks in the customer warehouse, there are also drive-in racks. The bottom width of the drive-in rack is 1340mm. The material access of drive-in racks requires unmanned forklifts to drive into the racks, which requires extremely highly accurate and secure operations of unmanned forklifts.

 

VisionNav Robotics is equipped with some reach truck unmanned forklifts, which drive into the shelf under the condition of a small width range, follow the principle of storage first before picking, or picking first with later storage, and finally carry out material storage and retrieval operations in limited storage space.


Highlight 3: The Robot Control Scheduling System and the AGV Forklift Seamlessly Connect Multiple Devices

The robot control scheduling system of VisionNav Robotics has the functions of multi-device docking and large-scale scheduling. In the process of inbound and outbound of the warehouse, the unmanned forklift, via the robot control scheduling system, can be automatically connected to the single-sided fire door, automation equipment like roller line and hoist, elevators. Which can help realize the integrated and collaborative operation of the production devices, and improve logistics efficiency.

 

Since 2022, VisionNav Robotics has frequently launched new projects at home and abroad. According to statistics from China Mobile Robot and AGV Industry Alliance, the sales volume of mobile forklift robots (including visual navigation) in China reached 8,000 units in 2021, VisionNav Robotics still leads the industry with a stable shipment and efficient delivery!

 

In 2022, VisionNav Robotics will continue to use its leading technical strength and localized team services to ensure the efficient delivery and completion of each project, and help customers move closer to smart manufacturing.