AUTOMATED SYSTEM FOR PRODUCING LOCATION-BASED INVENTORIES

• US 20080055088A1
• Filed: 08/30/2007
• Published: 03/06/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 08/31/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nbg Id, Neopost Technologies S.A. (Quadient SA)
• Original Assignee: Nbg Id, Neopost Technologies S.A. (Quadient SA)
• Inventors: CHATEAU, Nathalie, VENTURE, Guy, FABRE, Bruno, VALLET, Adrien
• Granted Patent: US 8,031,070 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 340/572.1
• CPC Class Codes: B65G 1/1371 with data records
• CPC Class Codes: B65G 2209/04 Indication location means
• CPC Class Codes: B66F 9/0755 Position control; Position detectors
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders

Abstract

In a system for producing a location-based inventory of objects each furnished with an RFID transponder (24) designed to interact with an RFID reader/interrogator (30) and placed at different locations of a warehousing structure (10) consisting of a plurality of rows (16A-16C) supported by vertical uprights (18A-18D), provision is made for each of the uprights of this warehousing structure to be furnished at each of the rows with an RFID location transponder (26) and for processing means (30; 32) to produce a location-based inventory of the objects present on the warehousing structure according to the information received from the transponders.

Claims

1. System for producing location-based inventories of objects each furnished with an RFID transponder (24) designed to interact with an RFID reader/interrogator (30) and placed at different locations of a warehousing structure (10) consisting of a plurality of rows (16A-16C) supported by vertical uprights (18A-18D), characterized in that each of the uprights of this warehousing structure is furnished at each of the rows with an RFID location transponder (26) and in that it comprises processing means (30;

32) for producing a location-based inventory of the objects present on the said warehousing structure according to the information received from the transponders.

2. System according to claim 1, characterized in that each of the beginning uprights (18A) and end uprights (18D) of a row is also furnished with a lock-on marker (28B) designed to interact with a lock-on device (28A) associated with the said RFID reader/interrogator.

3. System according to claim 2, characterized in that the said lock-on device comprises an optical transceiver assembly.

4. System according to claim 2, characterized in that it also comprises a presence detector (27) to indicate or not the presence of an object in each of the said locations of the warehousing structure.

5. System according to claim 4, characterized in that the said presence detector comprises an ultrasound sensor.

6. System according to claim 4, characterized in that the said RFID reader/interrogator (30), the said presence detector (27) and the said lock-on device (28A) are mounted on a forklift truck (14) designed to pass in front of each of the rows of the said warehousing structure.

7. System according to claim 1, characterized in that the said processing means consist of a remote management data processing assembly (32) to which the information received from the transponders that is necessary for producing the location-based inventory is retransmitted by the said RFID reader/interrogator from wireless transceiver means (30A).

8. Method for producing a location-based inventory of objects each furnished with an RFID transponder designed to interact with an RFID reader/interrogator and placed at different locations in a warehousing structure consisting of a plurality of rows supported by vertical uprights each comprising at each of the rows an RFID location transponder, the said method consisting in moving the said RFID reader/interrogator in front of each of the rows of the said warehousing structure in turn and, during this movement, in interrogating and reading the data received from the RFID transponders of the said objects and the data received from each of the RFID location transponders, and from this reading in determining the location of each of the said objects in the said warehousing structure.

9. Method according to claim 8, characterized in that the said data acquisition is disabled for the time necessary for the RFID reader/interrogator to pass from one row to another.

10. Method according to claim 8, characterized in that, in order to determine the location of each object, a first filtration is carried out on the data received from the transponders by deleting the spurious reads and by retaining only the majority reads.

11. Method according to claim 10, characterized in that a second filtration is also carried out consisting in generating a weighted average of the reads relative to a determined transponder in order to make it possible to place the barycentres of each of these transponders in sequential order.

12. Method according to claim 8, characterized in that a verification of the consistency of the inventory is also carried out by comparing the number of objects inventoried in a determined zone of the said warehousing structure with the number of locations available in the said determined zone.

13. Method according to claim 8, characterized in that, during the said movement, the presence or absence of an object in each of the locations of the said warehousing structure is also determined.