Heterogeneous Multi-Robot Systems Approach for Warehouse Inventory Management

Abstract

In conjunction with the growth of automated warehouses, a logistical problem also increases. The automated inventory counting problem emerges from the difficulty of managing the products of these large distribution centers. Usually, these centers have long corridors and high shelves with many different products. To solve this problem, this work proposes an approach of a highly-scalable low-cost plug-and-play multirobot system for inventory management. Our approach is composed of a set that includes a micro-drone, an embedded camera module, and a ground mobile robot. In our tests, two situations are analyzed: first with one heterogeneous multirobot system set and a second situation with two heterogeneous multi-robot system sets. The results demonstrate the advantage of having the interconnected multi-robot system to reduce the time of the inventory management task.