Automation in Warehouse Development

235 Pages·2012·9.273 MB·English

by  Roelof Hamberg, Jacques Verriet (auth.), Roelof Hamberg, Jacques Verriet (eds.)

Automation in Warehouse Development
Roelof Hamberg Jacques Verriet
•
Editors
Automation in Warehouse
Development
123
RoelofHamberg Jacques Verriet
EmbeddedSystems Institute EmbeddedSystems Institute
Eindhoven Eindhoven
The Netherlands The Netherlands
e-mail: [email protected] e-mail: [email protected]
ISBN 978-0-85729-967-3 e-ISBN978-0-85729-968-0
DOI 10.1007/978-0-85729-968-0
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Foreword
The world might be flat again,1 but it still takes considerable time to ship goods
from one side to the other. Distribution centres take up a central role in the
supply chain to stock goods coming from a multitude of producers and ship
customer-specific orders to the end client. Increasingly high demands have to be
fulfilled in a cost-efficient manner.
In 2006, we took up the challenge to tackle ‘‘one of the last frontiers’’ in
industrial automation: unstructured item picking by human order pickers in
distribution centres. At the time, progress in vision technology and robotics gave
us the impression this was an achievable goal. However, automation of the
‘‘hardware’’ is only half the problem, and not even the most difficult half.
A distribution centre fulfils many functions and its design is based on many
yearsofexperience. Item picking byhumanoperatorstakes upacentralrole,and
thereforedesignrulesincorporateaspectsofthewholesystem.Yousimplycannot
replace one aspect, in isolation, by an ‘‘automated’’ version without considering
the total system. That was the real challenge we put into this project: how to
incorporateanewandyetunknownfunctioninanoptimalwayforthesystemasa
whole.
And what a challenge it was.
The ‘‘industry-as-laboratory’’ philosophy of the Embedded Systems Institute
wasenthusiasticallyembracedbyresearchgroupsoftheuniversitiesofEindhoven,
Delft,Twente,andUtrecht.Rightfromthestartthesegroupsfacedthechallenging
(‘‘frustrating’’, some would say) deadlock situation. Groups working on compo-
nent design needed overall system aspects of the yet to be developed system,
groups working on system design needed details of the yet to be developed
components. And both were not able to provide the other with the requested
information.
1 See Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century
publishedbyFarrar,StrausandGiroux.
v
vi Foreword
Now,5yearsdowntheline,thisbooksummariseswhatwehaveachieved.One
of our main lessons is that there is no such thing as a ‘‘one solution suits all’’.
We will have to remain flexible inapplying the lessons learned innew situations.
If they do not fit, use other ones or develop new solutions if others do not exist.
That was what this project was really about: Flexible Automated Logistics
CONcepts (FALCON).
Veghel, April 2011 Gert Bossink
Director R&D
Vanderlande Industries
Preface
ThisbookmarkstheendoftheDutchBSIKFalconproject,addressingthemodel-
drivendevelopmentofautomatedlogisticsystems.Inparticular,thewarehouseand
distributionsystemsasdevelopedbyVanderlandeIndustries,aleadingsupplierof
integrated logistics systems for automation of warehouses, were selected as
Falcon’scarrying industrial case.
This books is the sixth in a series of books, all reporting on the large 5-year
industry-as-laboratory projects, as executed by the Embedded Systems Institute
(ESI), in close collaboration with its industrial and academic partners.2
The Falcon project was executed from October 2006 until September 2011. It
was carried out by a consortium consisting of the Embedded Systems Institute,
Vanderlande Industries, Demcon Advanced Mechatronics, Delft University of
Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eurandom, the University of
Twente,andUtrechtUniversity,andleadbyESI,togetherencompassing95FTE.
Falcon focuses on model-driven development within the context of ware-
house automation with a specific emphasis on warehouse control and enabling
technologies for the automation of warehouse functions. Model-driven develop-
ment provides ameanstohandleincreased systemcomplexitybyfocusing onthe
problemdomaininsteadofthesolutiondomain.Itisadevelopmentapproachthat
focuses on creating models and system abstractions, as a means to increase pro-
ductivity and quality by simplifying design processes and supporting design
decisions, whilst promoting communication between all parties involved.
TheEmbeddedSystemsInstitutehas,initspreviousprojects,alreadyshownthe
benefitsofmodel-drivendevelopmentinseveralotherdomains.TheFalconproject
adds a new domain by successfully applying this approach to the design of ware-
houses, robotic warehouse components, and warehouse management and control
systems.Keyresultsoftheprojectinclude highlymodularreference architectures
thatsupportthemodel-drivendevelopmentofwarehousemanagementandcontrol
2 The books of the earlier industry-as-laboratory projects Boderc, Tangram, Ideals, Trader,
andDarwinareavailableonESI’swebsite:http://www.esi.nl/publications/books/.
vii
viii Preface
systems; simple aspect models that effectively guide the development of new
warehouse concepts or the configuration of new warehouse systems; a versatile
automated item-picking workstation integrating a novel underactuated robot hand
and new item recognition and localisation algorithms; and a scalable and robust
shuttle-based transportation system with similar performance as conventional
conveyor-based transportation systems.
IwouldliketothanktheparticipantsoftheFalconprojectfortheircommitment
andcontributionstotheproject:togethertheyhavesecuredFalcon’ssuccess.The
financial support by Vanderlande Industries and the Dutch Ministry of Economic
Affairs(throughAgentschapNL)aregratefullyacknowledged.Iwouldalsoliketo
thankSpringerfortheirwillingnesstopublishthisbook,withwhichtheEmbedded
Systems Institute wishes to share the most important results of the Falcon project
with a broad audience, in both industry and academia.
Eindhoven, April 2011 Prof. Dr. Ir. Boudewijn Haverkort
Scientific Director and Chair
Embedded Systems Institute
Acknowledgments
Automationin warehouse development is a result ofthe Falcon project conducted
under the responsibility of the Embedded Systems Institute with Vanderlande
Industries as the carrying industrial partner. This project is partially supported by
the Netherlands Ministry of Economic Affairs under the Embedded Systems
Institute (BSIK03021) program.
WegratefullyacknowledgethecooperationwiththeemployeesofVanderlande
Industries throughout the 5-year project. Their warehouse domain knowledge and
ourpartners’appliedresearchhaveformedthebasisforAutomationinwarehouse
development, a book targeted at academic researchers and industrial practitioners
describing state-of-the-art research on warehouse automation and model-based
warehouse design.
We would like to thank the employees of our partners (Embedded Systems
Institute, Vanderlande Industries, Demcon Advanced Mechatronics, Delft
University of Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology, University of
Twente, Utrecht University, and Eurandom) for writing the chapters of this book.
We would also like to thank the reviewers from Vanderlande Industries, the
Embedded Systems Institute, and our academic partners. Their constructive
feedback has improved the quality of the book.
ix
Contents
Part I Introduction
1 The Falcon Project: Model-Based Design
of Automated Warehouses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Roelof Hamberg and Jacques Verriet
Part II Decentralised Control Engineering
2 A Reference Architecture Capturing Structure and Behaviour
of Warehouse Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Jacques Verriet and Bruno van Wijngaarden
3 Decentralised Warehouse Control through
Agent Organisations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Huib Aldewereld, Frank Dignum, and Marcel Hiel
4 Model-Driven Software Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Marcel van Amstel, Mark van den Brand, Zvezdan Protic´,
and Tom Verhoeff
Part III Models in System Design
5 Aggregate Models of Order-Picking Workstations. . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Ricky Andriansyah, Pascal Etman, and Jacobus Rooda
6 Model Support for New Warehouse Concept Development. . . . . . 75
Roelof Hamberg
xi
xii Contents
7 Warehouse System Configuration Support through Models . . . . . 87
Roelof Hamberg and Jacques Verriet
Part IV Automated Item Handling
8 An Industrial Solution to Automated Item Picking . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Toine Ketelaars and Evert van de Plassche
9 Underactuated Robotic Hands for Grasping in Warehouses. . . . . 117
Gert Kragten, Frans van der Helm, and Just Herder
10 Item Recognition, Learning, and Manipulation
in a Warehouse Input Station. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Maja Rudinac, Berk Calli, and Pieter Jonker
11 Object Recognition and Localisation for Item Picking. . . . . . . . . 153
Oytun Akman and Pieter Jonker
12 Integration of an Automated Order-Picking System. . . . . . . . . . . 163
Wouter Hakvoort and Jos Ansink
Part V Transport by Roaming Vehicles
13 Self-localisation and Map Building for Collision-Free
Robot Motion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Oytun Akman and Pieter Jonker
14 Flexible Transportation in Warehouses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Sisdarmanto Adinandra, Jurjen Caarls, Dragan Kostic´,
Jacques Verriet, and Henk Nijmeijer
Part VI Conclusion
15 Reflections on the Falcon Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Roelof Hamberg, Jacques Verriet, and Jan Schuddemat
Appendix A: Falcon Project Partners. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Appendix B: Falcon Project Publications. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235