Method and system for monitoring a container fullness comprising a lift mechanism to mody the working depth of the container
AssigneeIntrinsic Innovation LLC
InventorLucas Whitaker
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The system can include: a container no, a set of sensors 120, and a controller 130. The system can optionally include a robot 140. However, the system 100 can additionally or alternatively include any other suitable set of components. The system functions to monitor and/or maintain a fullness level of a container. The system can additionally or alternatively function to enable robotic picking out of the container (e.g., in a pick-and-place setting). The system can additionally function to maintain candidate objects within reach of the robot's end effector to increase robot uptime while minimizing the extent of the robot's required motion (e.g., in the z-axis).
Claims18
A method for robotic picking, comprising:
- using a multi-axis robot, picking a first set of objects out of a container, the container comprising a set of walls and a container floor defining a working depth relative to a lip of the set of walls;
- determining satisfaction of a minimum fullness threshold of the container;
- and
- responsive to a satisfaction of the minimum fullness threshold of the container, transforming the container floor relative to the set of walls using a lift mechanism to modify the working depth.
A non-transitory computer storage medium encoded with a computer program, the program comprising instructions that are operable, when executed by data processing apparatus, to cause the data processing apparatus to perform operations comprising:
- using a multi-axis robot, picking a first set of objects out of a container, the container comprising a set of walls and a container floor defining a working depth relative to a lip of the set of walls;
- determining satisfaction of a minimum fullness threshold of the container;
- and
- responsive to a satisfaction of the minimum fullness threshold of the container, transforming the container floor relative to the set of walls using a lift mechanism to modify the working depth.
A system comprising:
- one or more computers and one or more storage devices storing instructions that are operable, when executed by the one or more computers, to cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising:
- using a multi-axis robot, picking a first set of objects out of a container, the container comprising a set of walls and a container floor defining a working depth relative to a lip of the set of walls;
- determining satisfaction of a minimum fullness threshold of the container;
- and
- responsive to a satisfaction of the minimum fullness threshold of the container, transforming the container floor relative to the set of walls using a lift mechanism to modify the working depth.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.