Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

Waseda University

Carnegie Mellon University

Kunihiro Iwamoto

Yuta Itozawa

Hirotaka Komura

Yutaro Takagi

Yoshiaki Nakamoto

Junya Ota

Nobuhisa Otsuki

Haeyeon Lee

Kota Oishi

Takatoshi Morimitsu

Wataru Kaku

Kentaro Ichikawa

Takashi Yamamoto

Yasuhiro Ota

Taisuke Sugaiwa

Kenta Miyahara

Makoto Kakuchi

Daisuke Sato

Takuya Watabe

Seiichi Tsunoda

Keima Fukunaga

Shigeki Sugano

Shunji Inoue

Hiroyasu Iwata

Mitsutoshi Asano

James J Kuffner

Junggon Kim

Nancy S Pollard

Nami Muramatsu

Junichi Ikeda

Tetsuji Ueda

Kentaro Tsuboi

Konosuke Arata

Isamu Furukawa

Ken Saruhashi

A management apparatus, a management method, and a program capable of preventing inefficient replenishment from being performed are provided. A management apparatus includes an information acquisition unit configured to acquire consumption information, which is information indicating an amount of consumption of articles stored in a storage container and a replenishment determination unit configured to determine, based on the consumption information, whether to individually replenish articles in the storage container in which the articles have been consumed using a picking robot or to replace the storage container in which the articles have been consumed by a storage container in which a predetermined number of articles are stored.

Management apparatus, management method, and program

A delivery system including: a plurality of autonomously-moving-type delivery vehicles each including a battery and configured to deliver an article to a delivery destination by electric power the battery is charged with; and a transportation vehicle configured to carry and transport the plurality of the delivery vehicles. For each of the plurality of the delivery vehicles, based on a route for delivering the article and a remaining amount of charge of the battery, a surplus or shortfall in the remaining amount of charge of the battery required for traveling along the route is calculated, and based on the result of the calculation of the surplus or shortfall in the remaining amount of charge, surplus electric power is supplied from the battery of a delivery vehicle having a surplus remaining amount of charge to the battery of a delivery vehicle having a shortfall in the remaining amount of charge.

Control method for controlling delivery system

A conveyance system, a conveyance method, and a program reducing the possibility that an object that is accommodated in a box and is being conveyed is damaged are provided. A conveyance system conveys a box accommodating an object by conveyance robots. The conveyance system includes a first calculation unit configured to calculate, based on a kind and an arrangement of the object, a first maximum allowable acceleration indicating a maximum value of an allowable acceleration of the box in a width direction and a second maximum allowable acceleration indicating a maximum value of an allowable acceleration of the box in a depth direction.

Conveyance system, conveyance method, and program

An article management system that manages a delivered article by using a computer is provided. The article management system stores identification information identifying an article to be delivered to a user thereof and use information about use of the article attached by a sender of the article while associating them with each other; and reads, when the user uses the article, the identification information attached to the article, and extracts and outputs the use information associated with the identification information.

Article management system, article management method, and article management program

In a conveyance system, an object is conveyed by use of a conveyance robot. The conveyance robot includes: an arm including a shaft portion extensible and retractable in an axial direction of the shaft portion, and a protruding portion extending from the shaft portion in a direction different from the axial direction so as to be engaged with a groove formed on the object; a drive mechanism configured to rotate the arm around the axial direction as a rotating axis; and a detecting portion configured to detect an abnormality in the rotation angle of the arm.

Conveyance robot

A rack includes: a casing; M pairs of supports that are provided inside the casing so as to extend in a depth direction and arrayed at regular intervals in an up-down direction; and a lock mechanism that locks returnable containers each housed while being supported so as to be slidable along one pair of supports. The casing of the rack is divided into N rows by (N−1) partition plates, with the M pairs of supports provided in each row, to be able to house a maximum of (M×N) returnable containers. The lock mechanism is provided in each of the (N−1) partition plates so as to extend through the partition plate and correspond to each tier, and simultaneously locks two returnable containers that are housed adjacent to each other on one side and the other side of the partition plate.

Delivery rack and delivery vehicle

A robot system and a method for driving a robot capable of moving the position of the center of gravity of the robot while minimizing the increase in the footprint thereof are provided. A robot system according to an aspect of the present disclosure includes a robot. The robot includes a movable moving part, an upper body part disposed above the moving part, and a driving mechanism for tilting the upper body part and moving a lower end of the upper body part in a direction in which the upper body part is tilted.

Robot system and method for driving robot

A delivery shelf system includes a shelf extending from an exterior to an interior of a building, and a returnable box (RB) stored and slidably supported in the shelf. A first recessed part (FRP) is provided in an indoor-side end part of RB and a second recessed part (SRP) is provided in an outdoor-side end part thereof; a locking mechanism including a projecting part configured to be pressed and inserted into FRP or into SRP is provided at the indoor-side end part of the shelf; the projecting part is inserted into FRP while RB is stored in the shelf, so that RB is locked to the shelf; and when the projecting part is retracted from FRP by releasing the locking and RB is pulled out from the shelf into inside the building, the projecting part is inserted into SRP and the pulled-out RB is thereby stopped.

Delivery shelf system and its control method

An area recognition system, an area recognition method, and a program that simplify a control logic for recognizing a movement between travel areas are provided. An area recognition system recognizes a travel area of a robot. A magnetic member having a first magnetic pole and a magnetic member having a second magnetic pole different from the first pole are disposed between different travel areas. The robot includes a first magnetic sensor, a second magnetic sensor provided at a position different from a position where the first magnetic sensor is provided along a traveling direction of the robot, and a recognition unit configured to recognize a movement of the robot between the different travel areas by the first magnetic sensor detecting the first magnetic pole and the second magnetic sensor detecting the second magnetic pole.

Area recognition system, using magnetic sensors, area recognition method, using magnetic sensors, and program for executing area recognition method using magnetic sensors

One or more magnetic members including a magnetic member, and two magnetic members are disposed between the different travel areas. A polarity of the magnetic member on an upper surface side is a first magnetic pole. A polarity of each of the two magnetic members on the upper surface side is a second magnetic pole. The robot includes a magnetic sensor configured to detect the first magnetic pole, a safety apparatus configured to suppress an operation of the robot in response to the detection of the first magnetic pole, a magnetic sensor, a switching unit configured to switch between a stopped state and an operable state of the safety apparatus in response to the detection of the second magnetic pole, and a recognition unit configured to recognize a movement of the robot between the different travel areas by detecting each of the one or more magnetic members.

Area recognition system, area recognition method, and program including magnetic members for recognizing a travel area of a robot

A conveyance apparatus capable of easily moving an object without the need for a precise alignment control for engaging an arm thereof with the object is provided. The conveyance apparatus includes: an arm that is movable in a horizontal direction; and a control unit configured to control a movement of the arm, in which the arm includes a ratchet claw, and the control unit moves the arm along a surface of an object, the surface including an engagement part.

Conveyance apparatus

An extension pipe includes a first belt including a plurality of first engagement pins formed on an upper side along the upper side and a plurality of second engagement pins formed on a lower side along the lower side, a second belt including a plurality of first engagement holes formed on the upper side along the upper side and a plurality of second engagement holes formed on the lower side along the lower side, and a first guide part including a spiral groove configured to spirally guide the first belt and the second belt. A difference between a length of a first trajectory in which each of the first engagement pins moves along the spiral groove and a length of a second trajectory in which each of the second engagement pins moves along the spiral groove is less than half a circumference of the spiral groove.

Extension pipe and transport robot

A transport system is a transport system in which an autonomous mobile robot transports an object. The autonomous mobile robot includes a mounting portion on which the object is mounted, and a hook that hooks on the object mounted on the mounting portion from below. An upper surface of the mounting portion includes a recessed portion having a shape corresponding to a shape of a bottom surface of the object mounted on the mounting portion.

Transport system

A logistics system provides a logistics service utilizing a logistics robot that delivers packages by autonomous traveling. The logistics system includes one or more processors. When delivery destinations of the packages are dispersedly located on a plurality of floors of a building, the one or more processors execute a priority determination process that determines priority among the plurality of floors. Then, the one or more processors execute a logistics robot control process that controls the logistics robot so as to deliver the packages to the plurality of floors in an order of the priority.

Logistics system, logistics robot, and logistics robot control method

A shelf inventory management system includes: a shelf including a plurality of storage boxes each of which is identified; a first sensor provided for each row of the shelf to detect a mass change of the storage boxes, and a second sensor for detecting that each of the storage boxes is pulled out from the shelf; and a management unit that manages an inventory of an article stored in each of the storage boxes. The management unit determines which article has been taken out from which of the storage boxes, based on detection results of the first sensor and the second sensor.

Growing community of inventors

Nagakute, Japan

Kunihiro Iwamoto