Method and apparatus for working-place backflow of robots

An apparatus for working-place backflow of robots, comprising:

• a first acquiring module, configured to acquire current coordinates of a robot currently in an idle state in a working area;
• a second acquiring module, configured to acquire coordinates of all destinations which the robot currently in an idle state is going to return to, wherein the coordinates of the destinations comprise a plurality of destinations and the coordinates of the plurality of the destinations are all located at outside of the working area;
• a plurality of storage areas are located outside of the working area, with the plurality of storage areas at different zones, and the coordinates of the plurality of the destinations are all set in the storage areas at predetermined zones outside the working area;
• a first calculating module, configured to calculate, according to distances from the current coordinates of the robot currently in an idle state to the coordinates of all the destinations and time for the robot currently in an idle state, coordinates of a target destination nearest to the current coordinates;
• and
• a first controlling module, configured to control the robot currently in an idle state to move out of the working area according to a backflow path corresponding to the coordinates of the target destination, so as to ensure that the robot currently in an idle state departs orderly,
• wherein the first calculating module comprises:
• a first calculating unit, configured to calculate a backflow path from the current coordinates of the robot currently in an idle state to coordinates of each of the destinations;
• a second calculating unit, configured to calculate, according to distances and the time corresponding to the backflow paths, a first matching cost between the current coordinates of the robot currently in an idle state and the coordinates of each of the destinations;
• a first comparing unit, configured to compare a plurality of the calculated first matching costs;
• a first choosing unit, configured to choose smallest one from the first matching costs obtained by comparison of the first comparing unit;
• and
• a first determining unit, configured to determine coordinates of a destination in the backflow path corresponding to the chosen smallest first matching cost as the coordinates of the target destination nearest to the current coordinates.