Locus Robotics Ideas Portal
Crediting Erons and Derek for bringing this idea to me...
Allow Congestion Manager to work with all queues, including Induct and Drop-off, such that once a specified number of bots occupy the queue, additional bots join a consolidated overflow queue.
Example: If a site has 100 bots but only 15 induct queue positions get filled regularly, only create 15 induct queue positions and set the congestion limit for the induct LP such that the 16th bot needing to enter the queue is directed to a nearby Consolidation Queue. This queue would be set to the Advancing / Conga mode. Excess queue positions for the drop-off, hospital, put away etc.. would point to the same queue. Since the bots are now assigned to the same queue, they should be able to work together to get in line and advance in an organized fashion. If their destination queue becomes available, they can get out of line and proceed to that queue.
The result of this would be: hundreds of queue positions scattered throughout a site would be consolidated into a single Consolidation Queue. This would simplify the operation for the client, make the maps cleaner and more legible, and streamline the design and map update processes. It feels like we have 90% of the functionality to do this already with Congestion Manager, but I'm told there are issues that still need to be worked through.
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Problem/opportunity trying to be solved
Some sites have 100+ bots with multiple Inducts, multiple Drop-offs, Put Away queues, a Wait queue, and a Hospital queue. This results in the need to create many hundreds of queue positions across the map. This becomes complicated for OSDs and RSEs to plan without improperly overlapping queue positions, and it creates an illegible pretty map and Fleet Monitor map. |
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Quantify the problem/opportunity
Every site design would benefit from having Consolidation Queue functionality. However, our largest sites would benefit the most. This would greatly benefit the design process, but the greatest benefit would come down the road when/if reworking the map becomes necessary. |
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What is the root cause of the problem/opportunity
The issue to be solved is: hundreds of queue positions spread across sites and overlapping with one another, while only a small portion of those queue positions are regularly used during normal operation. Consolidating the unused / rarely used positions into a consolidated queue allows for better space utilization, bot flow, and site organization. Rick called out this issue directly as contingent to scale in a meeting with C.S. on 2/9/23. |
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| Customer need date | Apr 30, 2023 |
| Urgent request | No |
| Report Tag | OSD, Tools, Contingent to Sale |
