Design and Installation of a Control Mechanism for an Automated Storage and Retrieval System

Low, Jun Heng (2016) Design and Installation of a Control Mechanism for an Automated Storage and Retrieval System. Final Year Project (Bachelor), Tunku Abdul Rahman University College.

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Abstract

The project with title Automated Storage and Retrieval System (AS/RS) with Inventory Control System has successfully developed by author, Low Jun Heng and his project teammates, Lee Sze Keat and Loo Chia Jie. The project’s aim is to design an AS/RS for industries which required small components to be stored. This project is divided into three areas which are mechanical design and fabrication, design and installation of control mechanism and inventory control software development. Upon completion of this project, these three areas were integrated as a system where a 3-axis storage and retrieval machine (S/R machine) with a storage shelf of up to 25 items will be operated automatically with control mechanism that would able to receive user input to store or retrieve inventory to and from the specified shelf. An inventory control software was developed in computer to keep track of the inventory level, prepare reports, calculate and update the reorder level and economic order quantity. The author’s project was focus on design and installation of control mechanism for the AS/RS whereby there are 3 degree of freedoms required in AS/RS: horizontal, vertical and extendable table (carrier to load in and out of the item). These movements are realized using electrical motors to move in X, Y and Z directions. Main controller used in this project is Arduino Mega 2560 where it is able to receive inputs from sensors and output to turn the motors. There are total of 4 limit switches, 2 proximity sensors and 2 incremental rotary encoders used; two limit switches in extendable table and one limit switch at each X and Y axis serve as homing switch, proximity sensors to feedback the correct X position to prevent miscounting of encoder and lastly encoders at X and Y axis to feedback the distance travelled and hence to indicate the direction of motors. After the integration, testing and troubleshooting were conducted to evaluate the performance of the system. Fine tune and various improvement have been done to increase the performance of the system such as better repeatability and reliability. Finally, all the objectives of the project were achieved whereby the control mechanism was successfully integrated with the AS/RS structure and inventory control software as a complete system. The recommendations for future work were discussed to further improve the AS/RS in the future.