1.3 Objective/limitations
The objective of this report is to explore different tracking and positioning techniques. After searching a bunch of possibilities, some techniques are filtered to be studied deeply, such as barcode RFID and Bluetooth etc. To build a tracking system in production line is the main task, the Raspberry Pi, integrated with RFID reader, is served as main controller in this system and remotely operated by SSH. For security, the real-time camera monitoring system is added as well. The whole system will be firstly tested in the computer, and then apply into the real work situation. This tracking system will applied in the workshop in PTC, the products with specified tags are transported by AGV, when it arrives at the right position, and RFID reader will get the ID information from the tags and transmit to Robot. Robot can distinguish from the received signals and decide how to continue the actions.in the meantime, all the Robot actions can be guarded by the monitoring system to ensure the safety. This system will help achieve the target aim at operating automatically and promote computation manufacturing in PTC.
While there still exists some boundaries, some parts are in the field of IT, which is unfamiliar to participate, and all language like c, python and ABB robot programming should be learnt from the start, every movements demands the work of explorations and preparations. Concerning the indoor positioning techniques is not accurate enough and the time limited as well, the positioning implement will be skipped for temporarily in this project.
2. Tracking and positioning techniques.
The literature research is pided into two sections. The first section is to explore the tracking methods and the second part is about positioning methods. Literature research has been carried out for nearly 10 weeks. In order to accomplish this project, it requires participants to have a good knowledge of related techniques. Thus one purpose of this project is to explore possibilities as many as possible and justify the future work.
The promising techniques will be introduced in this project. For the tracking methods it contains barcode QR-code and RFID and Camera, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth techniques for the positioning methods as well.
2.1 Barcode
2.1.1 Barcode definition
A barcode consists of black and white strips which represents data that can be scanned and interpreted into needed information, see Figure 1.
Figure1.Barcode samples
In the tracking system, each barcode contains unique code which is attached to certain product in the tracking system. Barcodes are applied to identify the ID of products to control the manufacturing process.
2.1.2 The components of barcode tracking system
The bar-coding system involves printing and attaching labels to the products, scanning the labels, interpreting the information into the computer, and the using the software to keep tracking of the specified products, see Figure 2.
Thus a barcode-based tracking system consists of three parts:
• The bar-code label
• Bar-code readers
• A suitable data-storage software program
Barcode labels can be bought or generated by using label printer, the lifetime depends on the label materials and its usage environment. Here are a bunch of barcode readers available such as lasers and portable data terminals (PDT). Data storage software is the heart of any tracking program, it can be exclusively designed or purchase from the company. 检测与定位装置在生产系统中的应用(3):http://www.youerw.com/yingyu/lunwen_37477.html