US-12617637-B2 - Object partitioner between heterogeneous transport containers

US12617637B2US 12617637 B2US12617637 B2US 12617637B2US-12617637-B2

Abstract

The present application discloses a method, system, and computer system for partitioning a set of objects among a set of transport containers. The method includes (i) receiving an indication of the set of objects to be loaded into the set of transport containers, (ii) determining, based at least in part on object information corresponding to the set of objects and resources available to load the set of objects, an plan to partition the set of objects across the set of transport containers, the plan including an indication of a subset of the objects allocated to a corresponding subset of the containers, and (iii) providing the plan as an output to be used in connection with loading various subsets of objects to corresponding subsets of containers.

Inventors

Jonathan Kuck
Zhouwen Sun
Jacopo Banfi
Vikram Ramanathan
William Arthur Clary
Kevin Jose Chavez

Assignees

DEXTERITY, INC.

Dates

Publication Date: 20260505
Application Date: 20230124

Claims (20)

1 . A system for partitioning a set of objects among a set of transport containers, comprising: a processor configured to: receive an indication of the set of objects to be loaded into the set of transport containers; determine, based at least in part on object information corresponding to the set of objects and resources available to load the set of objects, a plan to partition the set of objects across the set of transport containers, wherein: the plan including an indication of a subset of the set of objects allocated to a corresponding subset of the set of transport containers; and at least one partition is determined based at least in part on a predicted stability of a simulated load for a corresponding transport container; and provide the plan as an output to be used in connection with loading various subsets of the set of objects to corresponding subsets of the set of transport containers; and a memory configured to store the object information and the plan.
2 . The system of claim 1 , wherein various subsets of the set of objects to corresponding subsets of containers are loaded based at least in part on the plan, comprising: causing a robotic arm to load a first subset of objects to a first transport container.
3 . The system of claim 1 , wherein various subsets of the set of objects to corresponding subsets of containers are loaded based at least in part on the plan, comprising providing, via a user interface, an indication of a first subset of objects to a first transport container.
4 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the plan includes an indication of a loading sequence in which a first subset of the set of objects is to be loaded to a first transport container of the set of transport containers.
5 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the plan includes an indication of an unloading sequence in which a first subset of the set of objects that is loaded to a first transport container of the set of transport containers is to be unloaded at a destination location.
6 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the object information includes one or more of a size of an object of the set of objects, a dimension of an object of the set of objects, a weight of an object of the set of objects, a type of packaging, an identifier of an object of the set of objects.
7 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the plan further includes an assignment of a particular transport container of the set of transport containers to a particular transport container loading bay.
8 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the plan is further determined based at least in part on container information corresponding to the set of transport containers.
9 . The system of claim 8 , wherein the container information comprises one or more of a size of a transport container of the set of transport containers, a dimension of a transport container of the set of transport containers, a weight of a transport container of the set of transport containers, a capacity of another transport container of the set of transport containers.
10 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the plan is determined based at least in part on a partitioning model.
11 . The system of claim 10 , wherein the partitioning model is based at least in part on an expected amount of time to load a particular subset of the set of objects to a particular transport container of the set of transport containers at a source location.
12 . The system of claim 10 , wherein the partitioning model is based at least in part on an expected amount of time to unload a particular subset of the set of objects to a particular transport container of the set of transport containers at a destination location.
13 . The system of claim 10 , wherein partitions of the set of objects to be loaded into respective transport containers of the set of transport containers are determined based at least in part on the partitioning model and both an expected amount of time to load the partitions and the expected amount of time to unload the partitions.
14 . The system of claim 10 , wherein the partitioning model is based at least in part on a packing density of a subset of the set of objects in a particular transport container of the set of transport containers.
15 . The system of claim 10 , wherein the partitioning model is based at least in part on a set of available hardware or other resources to load the set of objects to the set of transport containers.
16 . The system of claim 10 , wherein the partitioning model is determined based at least in part on using a machine learning process with a training set of information pertaining the loading/unloading of objects to/from one or more particular transport containers.
17 . The system of claim 10 , wherein the processor is further configured to store historical information pertaining to the partitioning of the set of objects to the set of transport containers, and uses the historical information to refine the partitioning model.
18 . The system of claim 10 , wherein the partitioning model is determined based at least in part on a combinatorial optimization process.
19 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the plan is determined based at least in part on a partitioning model, and the plan selected from a set of partitioning plans computed within a predefined amount of time.
20 . The system of claim 19 , wherein the plan is determined based at least in part on the partitioning model, and determining the plan based at least in part on the partitioning model comprises iteratively performing the following steps until a selected partitioning is selected or until a predefined amount of time has expired: determining a current partitioning for the set of objects; and simulating, for the current partitioning, a loading of the set of objects to the set of transport containers.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO OTHER APPLICATIONS This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 63/305,189 entitled OBJECT PARTITIONER BETWEEN HETEROGENEOUS TRANSPORT CONTAINERS filed Jan. 31, 2022 which is incorporated herein by reference for all purposes. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Shipping and distribution centers, warehouses, shipping docks, air freight terminals, big box stores, and other activities that ship and receive non-homogeneous sets of objects use strategies such as packing and unpacking dissimilar objects in boxes, crates, containers, conveyor belts, and on pallets, etc. Packing dissimilar objects in boxes, crates, on pallets, etc. enables the resulting sets of objects to be handled by heavy lifting equipment, such as forklifts, cranes, etc., and enables objects to be packed more efficiently for storage (e.g., in a warehouse) and/or shipment (e.g., in truck, cargo hold, etc.). In some contexts, objects may be so dissimilar in size, weight, density, bulkiness, rigidity, strength of packaging, etc. that any given object or set of objects may or may not have attributes that would enable those objects to support the size, weight, distribution of weight, etc., of a given other object that might be required to be packed (e.g., in a box, container, pallet, etc.). When loading a transport container with a set of dissimilar objects, objects must be selected and loaded carefully to ensure the objects within the transport container does not collapse, lean, or otherwise become unstable (and to avoid object damage. Use of robotics is made more challenging in many environments due to the variety of objects, variations in the order, number, and mix of objects to be packed, on a given pallet for example, and a variety of types and location of container and/or feed mechanism from which objects must be picked up to be placed on the pallet or other container. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS Various embodiments of the invention are disclosed in the following detailed description and the accompanying drawings. FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a robotic system to load objects to a transport container according to various embodiments. FIG. 2A is a diagram illustrating an arrangement of a set of objects in a transport container according to various embodiments. FIG. 2B is a diagram illustrating an arrangement of a set of objects in a transport container according to various embodiments. FIG. 3A is a diagram illustrating a weight distribution of a set of objects in a transport container according to various embodiments. FIG. 3B is a diagram illustrating a weight distribution of a set of objects in a transport container according to various embodiments. FIG. 3C is a diagram illustrating a weight distribution of a set of objects in a transport container according to various embodiments. FIG. 4A is a diagram illustrating an arrangement of a set of objects in a transport container according to various embodiments. FIG. 4B is a diagram illustrating an arrangement of a set of objects in a transport container according to various embodiments. FIG. 5A is a tree corresponding to different states or placements of objects according to various embodiments. FIG. 5B is a tree corresponding to different states or placements of objects according to various embodiments. FIG. 6 is a flow chart illustrating a process to partition a set of objects to be loaded into a set of transport containers according to various embodiments. FIG. 7 is a flow chart illustrating a process to partition a set of objects to be loaded into a set of transport containers according to various embodiments. FIG. 8 is a flow chart illustrating a process to partition a set of objects to be loaded into a set of transport containers according to various embodiments. FIG. 9 is a flow chart illustrating a process to partition a set of objects to be loaded into a set of transport containers according to various embodiments. FIG. 10 is a flow chart illustrating a process to determine a sequence of a set of objects to be loaded into a transport container according to various embodiments. FIG. 11 is a flow chart illustrating a process to determine a sequence of a set of objects to be loaded into a transport container according to various embodiments. FIG. 12 is a flow chart illustrating a process to determine a sequence of a set of objects to be loaded into a transport container according to various embodiments. FIG. 13 is a flow chart illustrating a process to determine a sequence of a set of objects to be loaded into a transport container according to various embodiments. FIG. 14 is a flow chart illustrating a process to determine an arrangement of a set of objects to be loaded into a transport container according to various embodiments. FIG. 15 is a flow chart illustrating a process to determine an arrangement of a set of objects to be loaded into a transport container according to various embodiments. FIG. 16 is a flow chart illustrating a proces