Locus Robotics Ideas Portal
A navigational ability with bots that would allow them to have the right of way in certain situations or if certain conditions exist (ex: priority order bots always get optimal routing and right of way). The idea is this would avoid “dancing” clusters of bots in tight spaces where they’re all trying to re-route and create paths around each other.
The “let me through” bot would be able to signal it has priority and cause other bots that might soon block it to pause and let the priority bot through. Some people have referred to this as being a traffic light system. Another part of this feature could be when bots re-route because of another bot a certain number of times inside a defined time window (ex: 3 times within 3 seconds), the bots would “agree” on who goes first via pre-set rules (ex: bot with fewest remaining picks on it gets to go first). If the rules are too complex, maybe they use RNG and the lowest rolled number goes first.
|
Problem/opportunity trying to be solved
In high-density sites, bots too often compete for routes or get stuck at busy intersections trying to navigate around each other. This functionality would aid in making navigation in such environments much smoother. |
|
|
Quantify the problem/opportunity
We should be able to increase bot LPH rates and also model to smoother navigation in Sales Engineering (should result in not being "over botted" at a site, leading to better business cases since today we'd penalize the bots' performance due to poor expected navigation). |
|
|
What is the root cause of the problem/opportunity
Bot density in certain spaces is too dense and/or aisleways and travel ways are too narrow or small to allow for bots to properly get around each other without circumnavigating around a longer route. |
|
| Customer need date | Jul 1, 2024 |
| Urgent request | No |
