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US 12,001,224 B1Granted
Autonomous vehicle calibration
AssigneeAmazon Technologies, Inc.
InventorsAdam Joseph Greenbaum, Stephen Charles Paschall
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An inventory management system can include a fleet of mobile drive units. The mobile drive units can detect, using a sensor, calibration data associated with a calibration fixture. The calibration of the sensors can be updated based on the calibration data. The calibration data for the fleet of mobile drive units can be used determine a correction factor. The correction factor can be applied to the fleet of mobile drive units to further update the calibration of the sensors.
Claims20
An inventory handling system, comprising:
- a calibration region positioned within a warehouse environment, the calibration region comprising a calibration position marker and a calibration fixture;
- a fleet of mobile drive units, the fleet of mobile drive units having a plurality of mobile drive units each comprising:
- a propulsion system selectively operable to position the mobile drive unit in the calibration region;
- and
- one or more sensors configured to detect data associated with the calibration fixture;
- and
- a management module operable to:
- instruct a first mobile drive unit of the plurality of mobile drive units to move to the calibration position marker;
- instruct the first mobile drive unit to detect, using a first sensor, first calibration data associated with the calibration fixture;
- update calibration of the first sensor based on the first calibration data;
- instruct a second mobile drive unit of the plurality of mobile drive units to move to the calibration position marker;
- instruct the second mobile drive unit to detect, using a second sensor, second calibration data associated with the calibration fixture;
- update calibration of the second sensor based on the second calibration data;
- receive the first and second calibration data associated with the calibration fixture;
- and
- using a collective set of calibration data that includes at least the first and second calibration data, implement a fleet-wide update to the calibration of the one or more sensors of each of the plurality of mobile drive units including the first and second sensors.
13 more elements
A system comprising:
- a calibration fixture;
- a fleet of mobile drive units, the fleet of mobile drive units having a plurality of mobile drive units, each of the mobile drive units comprising a sensor configured to detect data associated with the calibration fixture;
- and
- a management module operable to:
- instruct a subset of the fleet of mobile drive units including at least two of the mobile drive units of the plurality of mobile drive units to detect, using a sensor, calibration data associated with the calibration fixture;
- instruct each of the subset of the fleet of mobile drive units to update calibration of the sensor of the mobile drive unit based on the calibration data;
- receive, from the subset of the fleet of mobile drive units, the calibration data associated with the calibration fixture;
- generate a correction factor for the fleet of mobile drive units based on calibration data;
- and
- update calibration of the sensors of the plurality of mobile drive units based on the correction factor.
7 more elements
A method of calibrating a mobile drive unit, the method comprising:
- instructing a fleet of mobile drive units having a plurality of mobile drive units to sequentially move to a calibration position;
- instructing each of the mobile drive units of the fleet of mobile drive units to detect, using at least one sensor while at the calibration position, calibration data associated with a calibration fixture so that the plurality of mobile drive units collectively generate a plurality of calibration data;
- instructing each of the mobile drive units to update calibration of the at least one sensor based on the calibration data detected by the respective at least one sensor;
- receiving the plurality of calibration data associated with the calibration fixture;
- and
- updating, based on the plurality of calibration data, calibration of the sensors of the fleet of mobile drive units.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.