Autonomous order fulfillment and inventory control robots

摘要

Some embodiments provide a system for fully autonomous order fulfillment and inventory management within a distribution site or warehouse. The system operates by autonomous robots directly pulling customer order items from distribution site shelves or pulling individual bins from distribution site shelves and dispensing appropriate quantities of items from the bins until all items of a customer order are retrieved without human involvement. The system further involves the robots autonomously monitoring item quantities within the distribution site, identifying and autonomously responding to shortages, and organizing the items within the distribution site for most efficient order fulfillment.

主权项

1. An autonomous order fulfillment system comprising:
a first robot comprising a motorized based and a container; and a second robot comprising (i) a motorized base, (ii) a lift coupled to the base rising to any of a plurality of heights above said base, and (iii) a retriever comprising a platform atop said lift and a retrieval arm, wherein the first and second robots cooperatively fulfill a customer order for a particular item with the first and second robots navigating about a plurality of shelves containing a plurality of items to a particular shelf containing the particular item, with the second robot raising said lift to align said platform to a height of the particular item about the particular shelf, retrieving the particular item from the particular shelf using the retrieval arm, and dispensing the particular item to the first robot container, and with the first robot delivering the particular item in the container to a packaging site.