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Case Study---A New Breakthrough of Van Truck Loading via Autonomous Forklift

2022-08-12
News - Company News

The rapid development of factory logistics automation and intelligent technology has greatly improved the internal operation efficiency of the warehouse, but dock automation has always been difficult to break through due to various obstacles, and most companies still deploy manual loading and unloading operations. However, the disappearance of the demographic dividend, intensive loading and unloading labor, poor operating conditions, serious loss of workers, and rising dock loading and unloading costs have urged companies to seek automatic platform loading and unloading solutions to replace manual operations.

 

Project Background

The warehouse dock is the only place for goods to get in and out of the warehouse. Whether it is the unloading of materials from trucks into the warehouse, or the transportation of materials in the warehouse and loading them into trucks, the two simple processes exist problems like inefficiencies, Low security, high error rate, and high goods damage rate. The VisionNav VNE20 autonomous forklift series configured in this project can easily handle indoor and outdoor heavy-load material handling, meet rigid needs such as outdoor platform loading and unloading, large-tonnage indoor transfer, and achieve the purpose of automated platform loading, saving manpower, time, and cost, and finally improve safety and efficiency.

 

Project Highlights

 

Highlight OneSemi-outdoor Dock Loading, Accurate Positioning of Container Truck

The biggest challenge in the semi-outdoor dock loading scenario is the inaccurate parking position of the truck because it is difficult to accurately locate and place the goods after the autonomous forklift drives into the long container compartment. Based on the VisionNav unmanned framework and the positioning solution combined with vision and laser, the VNE20 autonomous forklift configured in this project can cope with light changes and complete outdoor positioning. After the loaded autonomous forklift enters the narrow and long carriage, VisionNav successfully completes the precise placement and positioning of 18 pallets of goods in two rows in an environment where the width of the carriage is 2.35m and the gap between the left and right of the cargo is less than 30mm. The accuracy is almost comparable to manual work.

 

Highlights Two: Docking with WMS System to Dispatch Unmanned Forklifts

The robot control system independently developed by VisionNav can be connected with the customer's WMS system through the local area network to realize the task scheduling and vehicle scheduling functions of unmanned forklifts. When the driver parks the truck and sets up the boarding bridge, the warehouse task is issued under the AS/RS system, and the AS/RS system transports the target loading goods to the warehouse exit port. After the goods reach the end of the conveyor line, the conveyor line sends the loading demand signal to the central control system of the autonomous forklift, and dispatch the autonomous forklift to pick up the goods for loading.

In addition to issuing tasks at the terminal, the entire loading process does not require excessive manual intervention, which improves the safety of the loading process, reduces damage to goods caused by manual handling, reduces truck waiting time, and improves overall operational efficiency.

Highlights Three: Automatically Detect the goods, and Intelligently Adjust the Position
The counterbalanced autonomous forklift enabled by this project adopts visual navigation technology, which captures environmental images and extracts image feature information to obtain high-precision, high-stability global position and attitude information of autonomous forklifts. Not only can it detect the condition of the goods at the designated position, but when there is a deviation in the placement of the goods, the autonomous forklift can also adjust the operating posture, correctly fork and pick up the materials, and can finally realize automated truck loading and unloading solutions.

Highlight Four: Shared Pallets and Unmanned Forklifts Make Goods Tracking More Convenient

This project is paired with Yeloworld shared pallet, which is a perfect match with AS/RS and is compatible with most conveying and automated handling equipment. The pallet has a built-in RFID electronic label and a self-positioning system, which can effectively track the goods, improve the work efficiency of warehousing staff, reduce the cost of logistics operation, and realize the visibility and control of the goods throughout the process. At the same time, VisionNav autonomous forklifts and intelligent AS/RS are used to carry out smart handling and storage of goods and realize intelligent goods management of receipt and delivery, in-plant turnover, and storage.

Yeloworld shared pallets are made of reused and renewable raw materials and are 100% recyclable. It is reported that each piece of Yeloworld shared pallets in circulation will reduce carbon emissions by 7kg/year. The more cycles, the less carbon emissions will be.

ASRS

Customer Reviews

"The semi-outdoor dock automatic loading solution greatly improves the loading and unloading efficiency of the factory, shortens the waiting time of trucks, increases the fleet utilization rate, and saves the transportation costs; At the same time, the loading and unloading capacity of each platform is increased, the speed of goods inbounds and outbound is accelerated, the area of the cache area is reduced, the cost of the warehouse storage is reduced, and the whole process from the interior of the warehouse to the dock loading and unloading of goods realized flexible automation. "