DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF DUMPING SYSTEM ON A LOGISTICS-PACKAGE-SORTING MOBILE ROBOT

• Main Author: J T R Simanjuntak, William
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/75255
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the global e-commerce industry experienced a massive surge in growth. This mass transition towards online-shopping gave rise to new logistics challenges, as demands for shipping and distribution services provided by logistics companies skyrocketed. This resulted in several challenges and problems in package sorting and processing done in those companies’ warehouses. According to visits and interviews done by the Electrical Engineering Final Project Group, TA002 at a small logistics warehouse in Bandung, said warehouse could manually handle at least 3,000 and up to 8,000 packages per day. Because of this excessive workload, workers often work overtime, and human error occurrences in the sorting process become less uncommon. Alas, these manual-sorting errors cause lengthy package processing. These sorting errors increase worker’s workload because workers would have to manually search for the missorted packages and return them to the correct basket or bag. To address this problem, the Electrical Engineering Final Project Group, TA002 proposed a solution in the form of a mobile robot-based logistics package sorting system. In this system, the sorting process begins with a mobile robot picking up a package from a worker. The worker then scans a QR code stuck on the package using a smartphone, so that information regarding the package’s destination city and basket would then be received by the system, including the mobile robot which is currently standing by. The worker then follows up by placing the package on top of the mobile robot, which then delivers it by following a line using a line-following method until it arrives at the designated basket. The mobile robot then proceeds to dump the package into the basket, and loops back to pick up the next package from the worker, thus repeating the sorting cycle. In a use case where there are multiple mobile robots, each one could work and cooperate in a way that they would not crash into each other, but rather operate together. This Final Project Book discusses the design and implementation of the mobile robot’s dumping system that carries, dumps, and drops packages handled by the mobile robot into a basket. The dumping system uses a linear actuator, which is bolted to the mobile robot’s chassis and to the tray, as its main component. After testing, the dumping system manages to meet both the previously set dimension and weight specifications of the package, albeit with some limitations as footnotes. However, the system as a whole still could not properly solve the problems in manual sorting processes in small logistics warehouses. There are still several specifications yet to be met by the system due to time and resources constraints. Moreover, the system is still deemed unready to be used and deployed in real-world conditions on the field, and still requires further development.