University of Cincinnati College of Engineering graduate students Deepak Anthony David and Luke Bass are developing an easy-to-use system for launching autonomous drones in warehouses. The drones conduct inventory checks and warn of leaks from containers that could ruin entire shipments of cargo. The project is being carried out jointly with Valvoline.
Instead of satellite navigation, the drones indoors use lidar - a technology that measures the distance to objects using laser pulses. It allows them to avoid obstacles with centimeter accuracy.
The main feature of the system is a photorealistic model of the warehouse, a so-called digital twin. Workers can explore the virtual warehouse space, shown in high resolution, and with one mouse click send an autonomous drone to the needed aisle or section. The drone looks for goods or checks damaged pallets - platforms with cargo.
The students presented the prototype at a conference on modeling, assessment and management on October 25 in Phoenix.
"The main problem with inventory is inaccuracy," Bass says. "We found that 65% of warehouses in North America still conduct inventory manually. People pick items, classify them incorrectly or put them in the wrong place. Fixing it takes time."
Autonomous drones can move through narrow warehouse aisles and quickly reach the highest shelves. "For a drone, the third dimension is not a problem," Bass notes.
The system was refined in the Digital Futures high-bay laboratory at the University of Cincinnati. Inside a protective net, the students built a mock warehouse with rows of pallets holding empty boxes. Using lidar, the drone captured the contours of the space for navigation and transmitted a color 3D model in real time to a laptop.
On another computer, Bass opened a photorealistic video showing a third-person view of a digital drone flying through the virtual space while the real drone flew behind the researcher. "With high accuracy, it looks like a video game," Bass says. The virtual system runs on the Unreal Engine game engine, which is used in games such as Fortnite and Batman: Arkham City, making control intuitive.
The collaboration with Valvoline was organized through the university's Industry 4.0/5.0 Institute, which helps companies apply new technologies to solve problems.
According to Bass, demand for automated inventory systems will grow as new warehouses are built. Analysts at Interact Analysis estimate that more than 4,000 new warehouses will be built in the U.S. over the next four years.