THESIS
2019
ix, 66 pages : illustrations ; 30 cm
Abstract
Inventory management has been a source of problems for firms that operate a warehouse. A typical
warehouse is about 8000 square meters, and a conventional pallet racking system can be three to
five stories high. Conventional inventory management practice involves a team of people who go
around these pallets racking with handheld logistic devices such as laser scanners to carry out cycle
counts. Cycle counts are, therefore, tedious, and climbing up and down a pallet racking system is
not only time consuming, but also pose a danger to the workers. Labor costs also increase with the
aging of the population. Thus, automating the counting task is the next logical idea, and it has
indeed been attempted by a few companies and startups, but the results have been far from
promising. The...[
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Inventory management has been a source of problems for firms that operate a warehouse. A typical
warehouse is about 8000 square meters, and a conventional pallet racking system can be three to
five stories high. Conventional inventory management practice involves a team of people who go
around these pallets racking with handheld logistic devices such as laser scanners to carry out cycle
counts. Cycle counts are, therefore, tedious, and climbing up and down a pallet racking system is
not only time consuming, but also pose a danger to the workers. Labor costs also increase with the
aging of the population. Thus, automating the counting task is the next logical idea, and it has
indeed been attempted by a few companies and startups, but the results have been far from
promising. The main reason for failure is the instability in indoor UAV control. Indoor UAVs are
cut off from signals from global positioning systems that are necessary for locating, positioning
and stabilizing the vehicle, making it difficult for the onboard laser scanner to move toward objects
to scan their barcodes. The solution that this thesis develops not only addresses this issue but is
also capable of taking off, landing, and flying autonomously in a complex, indoor environment.
With the integration of an ERP inventory management module, the system can follow a schedule
and carry out an inventory cycle count autonomously, reducing labor costs as a result.
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