US 12,488,311 B2
Systems and methods for optimizing order fulfillment
Kaveh Kamgar, West Hills, CA (US); Lior Elazary, Agoura Hills, CA (US); Randolph Charles Voorhies, Newbury Park, CA (US); William Shane Simpson Grant, Van Nuys, CA (US); Sagar Pandya, Thousand Oaks, CA (US); and Daniel Frank Parks, II, Los Angeles, CA (US)
Assigned to inVia Robotics, Inc., Westlake Village, CA (US)
Filed by inVia Robotics, Inc., Westlake Village, CA (US)
Filed on Mar. 24, 2023, as Appl. No. 18/189,758.
Claims priority of provisional application 63/323,871, filed on Mar. 25, 2022.
Prior Publication US 2023/0325768 A1, Oct. 12, 2023
Int. Cl. G06Q 10/00 (2023.01); G06Q 10/087 (2023.01)
CPC G06Q 10/087 (2013.01) 18 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method for optimizing usage of an item cache by a plurality of autonomous robots, the method comprising:
receiving a set of orders for a plurality of items;
determining a plurality of containers distributed in a site that contain the plurality of items;
reserving one of a plurality of slot types available at the item cache for each container of the plurality of containers in a plan that is distributed to the plurality of autonomous robots for execution, wherein different sets of the plurality of slots are associated with a different slot type of the plurality of slot types;
controlling the plurality of autonomous robots according to the plan and different reservations of different slot types for different containers of the plurality of containers, wherein controlling the plurality of autonomous robots comprises transferring a set of containers from the plurality of containers to the plurality of slots via coordinated operation of the plurality of autonomous robots, wherein the set of containers contain items for a subset of orders from the set of orders, wherein said transferring comprises placing each container of the set of containers into a slot that is associated with a slot type that matches a slot type reserved for that container;
directing at least one autonomous robot from the plurality of autonomous robots in retrieving a particular container from the plurality of containers in the site, wherein a particular slot type is reserved for the particular container in the plan distributed to the plurality of autonomous robots for execution;
selecting to eject one of a first container and a second container from the set of containers that are placed in slots of the particular slot type at the item cache in response to detecting arrival of the at least one autonomous robot with the particular container at the item cache, wherein selecting to eject one of the first container and the second container is based on a next unfulfilled order from the set of orders that requires items from one of the first container or the second container; and
controlling the plurality of autonomous robots in replacing the second container with the particular container in response to the first container comprising items of the next unfulfilled order.