The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Mar. 23, 2021
Filed:
Aug. 26, 2019
Vecna Robotics, Inc., Waltham, MA (US);
Daniel Theobald, Somerville, MA (US);
Siddharth Ram Chhatpar, Winchester, MA (US);
VECNA ROBOTICS, INC., Waltham, MA (US);
Abstract
A method includes operating, at an initial stage, a fully automated warehouse in which robots handle in an automated way the transfer of items from container to container on an automated basis and receiving an indication of a change in needed throughput through the warehouse. When a spike exceeds a completely automated system threshold, the method implements a hybrid operation for the warehouse, such that (1) the movement of containers in the warehouse anticipates human interaction and a robot having a removable cart is used in the process. The system can schedule humans at particular times to take their turn in manually managing the movement of containers and so remove the cart having containers thereon from the robot for manual delivery of containers to locations. The method includes causing a pre-staging event to occur such that source containers and destination containers can be pre-staged for the characteristics of the worker.