A delivery system for automatically delivering items from a source location to a destination location within a delivery environment is described. The system comprises: a plurality of remotely operable heterogeneous robots, and an orchestration system configured to control and orchestrate the plurality of heterogeneous robots to execute the delivery of items from the source location to the destination location. The orchestration system comprises: an upstream communications engine for communication with a plurality of different service request platforms, the upstream communications engine being configured to receive a delivery request for the delivery and to transmit data relating to the status of the request as the request is processed; an orchestration logic engine configured to process the delivery request and select and instruct the plurality of heterogeneous robots to execute the delivery of the items from the source location to the destination location specified in the delivery request, each robot handling a unique part of the delivery and the concatenation of the unique parts forming the delivery from the source location to the destination location, the orchestration logic engine comprising a digital twin model for providing a 3D (3-Dimensional) map of the delivery environment in which the plurality of heterogeneous robots are operating, and being configured to constantly update the digital twin model with data received from the plurality of robots executing operations within the delivery environment; and a downstream communications engine for communicating with the plurality of heterogeneous robots either directly or via a plurality of different robotics control platforms each controlling a subset of the plurality of heterogeneous robots, the communications engine providing a communications gateway for receiving and transmitting data between the orchestration system and the plurality of heterogeneous robots, in use, the communications gateway being configured to convert messages between a first domain of the orchestration system and a different domain of each of the subsets of the plurality of heterogeneous robots to provide downstream interoperability.
System and method of orchestration between heterogenous robots and robots from multiple robotic platforms for goods delivery
2022-12-28
Patent
Electronic Resource
English