Bot-In-Time Delivery for Robotic Mobile Fulfillment Systems
研究了机器人移动履行系统（RMFS）中机器人搬运货架到拣货员的流程，通过排队网络模型分析两种机器人共享协议，计算最优机器人数量和速度，为系统设计提供规则。
This paper studies a robotic mobile fulfillment system (RMFS) featured by robots transporting movables shelves to order pickers. The RMFS can increase productivity, reduce costs, increase order picking accuracy, and improve operational flexibility. We build queue network models to describe the RMFS with two protocols in sharing robots for pickers, propose the corresponding algorithms, conduct numerical analyses, and evaluate the performance of the RMFS by calculating the throughput time. We then calculate the optimal number and the velocity of robots, and provide the effective design rules for the RMFS.