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:
Apr. 07, 2026
Filed:
Jul. 15, 2021
Ocado Innovation Limited, Hatfield, GB;
Robert Stadie, Hatfield, GB;
Andrzej Czarny, Hatfield, GB;
Thomas Oliver, Hatfield, GB;
Gareth Siret, Hatfield, GB;
Christopher Richard James Brett, Hatfield, GB;
Ocado Innovation Limited, Hatfield, GB;
Abstract
A controller is provided to control movement of a plurality of transporting devices. In particular, the controller provides improved robot shunting. More specifically, the controller delays the planning of a shunt path for an idle robot until closer to the time the idle robot needs to move out of the way. Advantageously this avoids the computing burden of planning shunts in advance that are never performed because the idle robot is subsequently tasked before the shunt were due to start. In particular, shunt paths can be planned very close to the time at which they need to be executed thereby providing a more efficient solution to robot shunting because very close to the execution time there is a very small probability that the plan will change in a way that the shunt needs to be recalculated.