| CPC G05D 1/0289 (2013.01) [G05D 1/0214 (2013.01); G05D 2201/0216 (2013.01)] | 20 Claims |
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1. A system for use in directing an article sorting operation, the system comprising a server, computer-controlled vehicles, a grid comprising grid cells for the computer-controlled vehicles to travel thereon, and destination containers, the server comprising a memory, a processor, and a routing engine, the system configured to:
receive, at the server, article information corresponding to a plurality of articles to be transported by the computer-controlled vehicles, the plurality of articles comprising a first article and a second article each having a first article dimension;
assign, by the routing engine, travel routes about the grid for the computer-controlled vehicles to travel thereon for transporting the plurality of articles to the destination containers, wherein the travel route of a first computer-controlled vehicle carrying the first article includes a turning maneuver at a first grid cell;
control, by the routing engine, the turning maneuver of a first computer-controlled vehicle in a first grid cell such that there is no contact between a first article carried on the first computer-controlled vehicle with a second article carried on a second computer-controlled vehicle present in a second grid cell that is adjacent to the first grid cell when the first computer-controlled vehicle is undertaking the turning maneuver;
wherein the first article dimension exceeds a predetermined range such that a turn radius of the first article carried on the first computer-controlled vehicle overlaps the turn radius of the second article carried on the second computer-controlled vehicle during simultaneous turning maneuvers of the first and second computer-controlled vehicles in the first and second grid cells respectively.
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