CONTROL SYSTEM FOR TRANSFER AND BUFFERING

摘要

A control system for transferring and buffering material in a material transport system. A transport system and method for moving an article between a conveyor and a workstation. A robot works in conjunction with transportation buffer control system to move Pods between storage shelves, load ports and I/O ports without intervention of the material handling controller. The robots include vertical movement mechanisms and horizontal movement mechanisms together with gripping devices to handle the Pods. Movement of Pods between storage shelves, load ports and I/O ports is seen as a single activity by the material control system. The TC identifies a Transport Job as a specific object (402) and submits the Transport Job to the Scheduler (404). The Control Thread (406) is a CLC object that receives commands from the Scheduler (404) and issues atomic level commands to the transport robot. The Control Thread (406) controls a transport robot via an x-axis controller (412) and z-axis controller (414). The Handshake Control (416) is able to communicate with the CLC object E23 or E24 Handshake Control Thread (418).