Warehousing is one of the most important activities in the supply chain, enabling competitive advantage. Effective management of warehousing processes is, therefore, crucial for achieving minimal costs, maximum efficiency, and overall customer satisfaction. Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) are the first steps towards organizing these processes; however, due to the human factor involved, information on products, vehicles and workers may be missing, corrupt, or misleading. In this paper, a cost-effective Indoor Positioning System (IPS) based on Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology is presented for use in Intralogistics that works automatically, and therefore minimizes the possibility of acquiring incorrect data. The proposed IPS solution is intended to be used for supervising order-picker movements, movement of packages between workstations, and tracking other mobile devices in a manually operated warehouse. Only data that are accurate, reliable and represent the actual state of the system, are useful for detailed material flow analysis and optimization in Intralogistics. Using the developed solution, IPS technology is leveraged to enhance the manually operated warehouse operational efficiency in Intralogistics. Due to the hardware independence, the developed software solution can be used with virtually any BLE supported beacons and receivers. The results of IPS testing in laboratory/office settings show that up to 98% of passings are detected successfully with time delays between approach and detection of less than 0.5 s.
Robotic bin-picking performance has been gaining attention in recent years with the development of increasingly advanced camera and machine vision systems, collaborative and industrial robots, and sophisticated robotic grippers. In the random bin-picking process, the wide variety of objects in terms of shape, weight, and surface require complex solutions for the objects to be reliably picked. The challenging part of robotic bin-picking is to determine object pick-points correctly. This paper presents a simulation model based on ADAMS/MATLAB cosimulation for robotic pick-point evaluation for a 2-F robotic gripper. It consists of a mechanical model constructed in ADAMS/View, MATLAB/Simulink force controller, several support functions, and the graphical user interface developed in MATLAB/App Designer. Its functionality can serve three different applications, such as: (1) determining the optimal pick-points of the object due to object complexity, (2) selecting the most appropriate robotic gripper, and (3) improving the existing configuration of the robotic gripper (finger width, depth, shape, stroke width, etc.). Additionally, based on this analysis, new variants of robotic grippers can be proposed. The simulation model has been verified on a selected object on a sample 2-F parallel robotic gripper, showing promising results, where up to 75% of pick-points were correctly determined in the initial testing phase.
Product assembly is often one of the last steps in the production process. Product assembly is often carried out by workers (assemblers) rather than robots, as it is generally challenging to adapt automation to any product. When assembling complex products, it can take a long time before the assembler masters all the steps and can assemble the product independently. Training time has no added value; therefore, it should be reduced as much as possible. This paper presents a custom-developed system that enables the guided assembly of complex and diverse products using modern technologies. The system is based on pick-to-light (PTL) modules, used primarily in logistics as an additional aid in the order picking process, and Computer Vision technology. The designed system includes a personal computer (PC), several custom-developed PTL modules and a USB camera. The PC with a touchscreen visualizes the assembly process and allows the assembler to interact with the system. The developed PC application guides the operator through the assembly process by showing all the necessary assembly steps and parts. Two-step verification is used to ensure that the correct part is picked out of the bin, first by checking that the correct pushbutton on the PTL module has been pressed and second by using a camera with a Computer Vision algorithm. The paper is supported by a use case demonstrating that the proposed system reduces the assembly time of the used product. The presented solution is scalable and flexible as it can be easily adapted to show the assembly steps of another product.
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