Automated Shipboard Build-up of Customized Pallet Loads

In this program Robotics Research Corporation (RRC) will develop an efficient, portable and agile material handling system (MHS), which enables autonomous shipboard de-palletizing and rapid build-up of customized pallet loads comprised of a diverse and precise mix of equipment and supplies to support military operations ashore. The MHS will fulfill the US Navy logistics objectives of substantially increasing throughput, while significantly reducing the labor requirement and inventory errors. The modular, scalable, portable and interoperable design characteristics of the MHS will permit it to be optimally configured for each unique installation site. RRC will evaluate and integrate proven commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) technologies to address issues such as automatic configuration generation of customized pallet loads, operations research based strategies to optimally queue outgoing items, and robust, vision based object recognition and localization techniques. In Phase I, RRC will provide a conceptual design of a class of end effectors to address the wide range of material handling requirements and will specify a scalable work cell layout and a configurable servomechanism and control approach to achieve maximum throughput. The technology base will be extensible to support more advanced levels of delivery systems in future deployments.