Robust Operation and Control Synthesis of Autonomous Mobile Rack Vehicle in the Smart Warehouse

Abstract

Nowadays, with the development of science and technology, to manage the inventory in the warehouse more efficiency, so the warehouse must have the stability and good operation chain such as receive and transfer the product to customer, storage the inventory, manage the location, making the barcode...in that operation chain, storage the inventory in the warehouse is most important thing that we must consider. In addition, to reduce costs for larger warehouse or expand the floor space of the small warehouse, it is impossible to implement this with a traditional warehouse. The warehouse is called the traditional warehouse when it uses the fixed rack. To build this type of warehouse, the space for storage must be very large. However, the cost for renting or buying the large warehouse is too expensive, so to reduce cost and build the flexible warehouse which can store the huge quantity of product within limited area, then the smart warehouse is necessary to consider. The smart warehouse system with autonomous mobile rack vehicles (MRV) increases the space utilization by providing only a few open aisles at a time for accessing the racks with minimal intervention. It is always necessary to take into account the mobile-rack vehicles (or autonomous logistics vehicles).

This thesis deals with designing the robust controller for maintaining safe spacing with collision avoidance and lateral movement synchronization in the fully automated warehouse. The compact MRV dynamics are presented for the interconnected string of MRV with communication delay. Next, the string stability with safe working space of the MRV has been described for guaranteeing complete autonomous logistics in the extremely cold environment without rail rack. In addition, the controller order has been significantly reduced to the low-order system without serious performance degradation. Finally, this control method addresses the control robustness as well as the performances of MRV against unavoidable uncertainties, disturbances, and noises for warehouse automation.