TW202349309A - Self-driving vending car control system, self-driving vending car control method, and non-transitory computer-readable storage medium - Google Patents

Abstract

A self-driving vending car control system, including a self-driving vending car and a server. When plurality of users send plurality of call requests to the server, a process unit of the server sorts the call requests, and generates a sequence. The server then controls the self-driving vending car to move to plurality of designated locations corresponding to the call requests sequentially according to the sequence.

Description

Unmanned vending vehicle control system, unmanned vending vehicle control method and non-transitory computer readable storage media

The present disclosure relates to a control system, particularly to an unmanned vending vehicle control system.

Compared with physical stores or vending machines, the technology of unmanned vending vehicles breaks the restrictions of fixed locations; compared with ordinary vending vehicles, it can save the cost of manual driving and management. However, in order to maximize the operational benefits of unmanned vending vehicles, their moving routes and stopping locations are important influencing factors.

Some of the existing unmanned vending vehicles are set to cruise on the road and stop to provide consumer sales services when passers-by wave to them; others are set to stop in crowded areas at specific times. However, the reach of the above methods is limited, and the unmanned vending vehicle is limited by the size of the vehicle body and the goods it can carry. It can only meet part of the purchase needs. When consumers have specific needs, they may not be able to sell them where they are. Locations offer specific items for sale.

The present disclosure provides an unmanned vending vehicle control system for controlling an unmanned vending vehicle. The unmanned vending vehicle control system includes a server. The server is communicatively connected to the unmanned vending car and a plurality of terminal devices, and includes a communication unit and a processing unit. The communication unit is used to receive a plurality of call requests from the terminal devices, and the call requests include information on a plurality of designated locations. The processing unit is coupled to the communication unit, wherein the processing unit is used to sort the call requests and generate a vehicle dispatching order, and the processing unit sequentially generates a plurality of movement instructions corresponding to the call requests according to the vehicle dispatching order, Sent to the unmanned vending vehicle through the communication unit, the unmanned vending vehicle moves sequentially to the designated locations corresponding to the call requests according to the movement instructions.

The disclosure also provides an unmanned vending vehicle control method, which includes the following steps: receiving a plurality of call requests from a plurality of terminal devices, and the call requests include a plurality of designated locations; sorting the call requests to generate a vehicle dispatching order; and according to the The vehicle dispatch sequence generates a plurality of movement instructions corresponding to the call requests in sequence; sends the movement instructions to the unmanned vending vehicle; and the unmanned vending vehicle moves to the location corresponding to the call requests in sequence according to the movement instructions. designated locations.

The disclosure also provides a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having at least one instruction stored thereon. When a processing unit executes the instructions, the instructions execute the unmanned vending vehicle control method.

It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following specific description are exemplary and explanatory only and are intended to provide further explanation of the present disclosure as claimed.

In order to make the description of the present disclosure more detailed and complete, reference may be made to the attached drawings and the various embodiments described below. The same numbers in the drawings represent the same or similar components.

Please refer to Figure 1 , which is a schematic diagram of an unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. The unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 includes a server 110, where the server 110 is communicatively connected to the unmanned vending vehicle 120 and a plurality of terminal devices ED1, ED2, ED3, and includes a communication unit 111 and a processing unit 112. The communication unit 111 and processing Units 112 are communicatively connected to each other.

In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the communication unit 111 may be a network port, an antenna, or other components with communication functions installed in the server; the processing unit 112 may be a processor or special device installed in the server. Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) or other computing devices; terminal devices ED1, ED2 and ED3 can be mobile devices, computers or other devices with communication functions operated by users.

In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the unmanned vending vehicle 120 is a mobile vehicle with an autonomous driving function and carries goods for consumers to purchase. For example, the unmanned vending vehicle 120 has a long body such as a truck or a van. The side of the vehicle body is provided with a door panel that can be lifted upward or slid laterally. When the unmanned vending vehicle 120 is stopped, the door panel is lifted or slid to allow the vehicle to pass. A consumer can inspect multiple products on display. At this time, the consumer can take one of the purchased goods to be purchased by sensing the RFID tag provided on the purchased goods or a product display rack in the unmanned vending car 120 because the purchased goods are removed. As the user walks and the load is reduced, the unmanned vending vehicle 120 can obtain the information of the purchased product. Then, the consumer provides consumer information to the unmanned vending car 120 through a mobile device application, barcode, proximity card or other authentication method. After the unmanned vending car 120 confirms the consumer's identity, it can obtain the consumer's online information. Debit the account and complete the transaction. If the consumer has not registered an online account or cannot authenticate his or her identity for some reason, the unmanned vending car 120 can also provide the customer with the service by installing a barcode scanner, a credit card swipe machine, a cash suction machine, a coin machine or other payment methods. The consumer completes the payment.

Please refer to Figures 2 and 3 at the same time, which are respectively flow charts of the unmanned vending vehicle control method 200 according to an embodiment of the present disclosure, and the unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 according to an embodiment of the present disclosure receives call requests CRa, CRb and Generate a schematic diagram of the sorting.

As shown in Figure 2, the unmanned vending vehicle control method 200 includes steps S201 to S206, which can be executed by the unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 shown in Figures 1 and 3.

As shown in Figure 3, when a first consumer wants to call the unmanned vending car 120 at a designated location A, and operates the terminal device ED1 to transmit a call request CRa containing information about the designated location A to the server 110; after that , a second consumer wants to call the unmanned vending vehicle 120 at a designated location B, and operates the terminal device ED2 to transmit a call request CRb containing information about the designated location B to the server 110 . At this time, the unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 executes step S201. The communication unit 111 first receives a call request CRa from the terminal device ED1, where the call request CRa includes information about the designated location A; then, the communication unit 111 receives a call request CRb from the terminal device ED2. , where the call request CRb includes information specifying location B, and the communication unit 111 transmits the call request CRa and the call request CRb to the processing unit 112 respectively. Among them, the information of designated locations A and B can be the coordinates of an electronic map, the coordinates of a Global Positioning System (GPS), or the relative position relative to a coordinate reference point, or other technical means of expressing location information.

Next, the processing unit 112 executes step S202 to sort the call requests CRa and CRb to generate a car dispatch sequence. In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the processing unit 112 generates the dispatch sequence according to the time when the call requests are received. That is, the processing unit 112 generates the call request CRa first in the order in which it receives the call requests CRa and CRb. , the call request CRb is followed by the dispatch sequence.

Thereafter, the processing unit 112 executes step S203 to determine whether the call requests CRa and CRb include a predetermined purchase product information. Since neither the call requests CRa nor CRb include the scheduled purchase product information, the processing unit 112 further executes step S204 to sequentially generate a plurality of movement instructions corresponding to the call requests CRa and CRb according to the dispatching order. At this time, the processing unit 112 sequentially generates a movement instruction MRa corresponding to the call request CRa and a movement instruction MRb corresponding to the call request CRb according to the dispatching order. Among them, the movement instruction MRa includes the information of the call request CRa (for example, the information of the first consumer), which also includes the information of the designated location A; similarly, the movement instruction MRb also includes the information of the call request CRa and the designated location B.

Next, in step S205, the processing unit 112 sends the movement instructions MRa and MRb to the unmanned vending vehicle 120 in sequence through the communication unit 111. Since the dispatching order is that the call request CRa comes first and the call request CRb comes after, the communication unit 111 will move in the order that the movement command MRa corresponding to the call request CRa comes first and the movement command MRb corresponding to the call request CRb comes after. The instructions MRa and MRb are sent to the unmanned vending vehicle 120.

After the unmanned vending vehicle 120 receives the movement instructions MRa and MRb, step S206 is executed. The unmanned vending vehicle 120 sequentially moves to the designated locations A and B corresponding to the call requests CRa and CRb according to the movement instructions MRa and MRb. Since the communication unit 111 sends the movement instructions MRa and MRb in the order of the movement instruction MRa first and the movement instruction MRb later, the unmanned vending vehicle 120 will also receive the movement instructions MRa and MRb in this order. Therefore, the unmanned vending vehicle 120 will first move to the designated location A corresponding to the movement instruction MRa to provide the first consumer with the service of selling goods, and then move to the designated location B corresponding to the movement instruction MRb to provide the first consumer with the service of selling goods. 2. Services for selling goods to consumers.

According to the above embodiment, the unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 can control the unmanned vending vehicle to go to locations A and B in sequence according to the time sequence of receiving the call requests CRa and CRb, so that the first consumer who sends the call request first has priority. The second consumer obtains the service.

However, in an embodiment of the present disclosure, the communication unit 111 receives a vehicle position O from the unmanned vending vehicle 120, and the processing unit 112 calculates a plurality of moving distances of the vehicle position relative to designated locations A and B, and calculates the moving distances based on the moving distances. The size generates the dispatch order. The vehicle location, like the designated location, can be the coordinates of an electronic map, the coordinates of a global positioning system (GPS), or the relative position relative to a coordinate reference point, or other technical means of expressing location information.

Please refer to Figure 3 again. The server 110 can grasp the location of the unmanned vending car 120 at any time through the communication unit 111. In step S202, when the processing unit 112 orders the call requests CRa and CRb, the processing unit 112 uses the communication unit 111 to automatically The vehicle position O received by the vending car 120 calculates the moving distance Da from the vehicle position O to the designated location A and the moving distance Db from the vehicle position O to the designated location B and compares them. After comparison, it is known that the moving distance Db is greater than the moving distance Da. Short, that is, the designated location B is closer to the vehicle location O than the designated location A. Therefore, when the processing unit 112 generates the dispatching order, it generates a dispatching order in which the call request CRb comes first and the call request CRa comes later. Subsequently, in steps S204 and S205, the processing unit 112 generates and sends movement instructions according to the vehicle dispatch sequence; in step S206, the unmanned vending vehicle 120 therefore first moves to the designated location B and then moves to the designated location A.

According to the above embodiment, the unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 can calculate a route with a shorter moving distance based on the designated locations A and B corresponding to the received movement instructions CRa and CRb, and control the unmanned vending vehicle 120 to follow the route to the designated locations in sequence. Locations B and A enable the unmanned vending vehicle 120 to complete the task of moving to designated locations B and A in a shorter moving distance, saving time and energy consumption.

It should be noted that when the movement instructions that need to be sorted include more than 3 designated locations, the first designated location closest to the vehicle position can be selected first, and then based on the first designated location, other designated locations can be selected. A second designated location closest to the first designated location is selected, and by analogy, a better route is sorted.

Furthermore, factors such as road distribution, traffic conditions, and weather between two points can be taken into consideration when calculating the moving distance to more accurately calculate a better route.

Next, please further refer to FIG. 4 , which is a schematic diagram in which the unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 according to an embodiment of the present disclosure dispatches unmanned vending vehicles or arranges the dispatch sequence according to the scheduled purchase product information required by different call requests. In the embodiment of Figure 4, the unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 includes more than one unmanned vending vehicle, such as three unmanned vending vehicles 120a, 120b and 120c shown in Figure 4, of which three unmanned vending vehicles 120a , 120b and 120c can refer to the unmanned vending vehicle 120 disclosed in the previous embodiment. The unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 can match the call requests with appropriate unmanned vending vehicles based on accepting call requests from different terminal devices ED3 and ED4. Among them, the unmanned vending car 120a carries an eraser product.

In one embodiment of the present disclosure, a third consumer wants to purchase a pencil, so the operating terminal device ED3 sends a call request CRc to the server 110, where the call request CRc includes a predetermined purchase product information BPa, recording a pencil product information. . After the server 110 receives the call request CRc and sorts the call request CRc into one of the dispatching orders of the unmanned vending vehicles 120a, the processing unit 112 executes step S203 and determines that the call request CRc contains the scheduled purchase product information BPa, and therefore further executes step S211 to automatically The unmanned vending vehicle 120a receives a vehicle-mounted product information VPa, where the vehicle-mounted product information VPa includes an eraser product information.

Next, in step S212, the processing unit 112 determines whether the scheduled purchase product information BPa and the vehicle-mounted product information VPa match. Specifically, the product information recorded in the scheduled purchase product information BPa and the vehicle-mounted product information VPa is compared to see whether the same product is included.

Since the scheduled purchase product information BPa records the product information of the pencil, and the vehicle-mounted product information VPa records the product information of the eraser, the two do not match, so the processing unit 112 further executes step S213 to send the call request CRc from the unmanned vending machine. Car 120a is excluded from the dispatch sequence.

According to the above embodiment, since the call request CRc sent by the third consumer includes the scheduled purchase product information BPa, through the judgment, comparison and elimination means of steps S203, S211 to S213 of the unmanned vending vehicle control method 200, the unmanned vending vehicle The control system 100 can avoid sending the unmanned vending vehicle 120a that does not carry pencil products to the location designated by the third consumer, saving unnecessary time and cost consumption for both the unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 and the consumer.

In another embodiment of the present disclosure, the unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 further considers the unmanned vending vehicle 120b, which carries a pencil product.

Following the above, the processing unit 112 executes step S213. After excluding the call request CRc from the dispatch sequence of the unmanned vending vehicle 120a, the processing unit 112 adds the call request CRc to the dispatch sequence of another corresponding unmanned vending vehicle 120b, and Step S203 is further executed, and since the call request CRc includes the scheduled purchase product information BPa, step S211 is further executed to receive vehicle-mounted product information VPb from the unmanned vending vehicle 120b through the communication unit 111, where the vehicle-mounted product information VPb includes the pencil product information.

Next, the processing unit 112 executes step S212 to compare whether the scheduled purchase product information BPa and the vehicle-mounted product information VPb are consistent. The scheduled purchase product information BPa and the vehicle-mounted product information VPb both contain the same pencil product information. Therefore, the processing unit 112 jumps Go to step S204.

In step S204, the processing unit 112 generates a movement instruction corresponding to the call request CRc according to the dispatch sequence of the unmanned vending vehicle 120b. Thereafter, the processing unit 112 executes step S205 and sends the movement instruction to the unmanned vending vehicle through the communication unit 111. 120b; finally, the unmanned vending vehicle 120b moves to a designated location corresponding to the call request CRc according to the movement instruction.

According to the above embodiment, the unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 can provide the third consumer with a service of selling pencil products at a designated location. Through the judgment and comparison methods in steps S203, S211 and S212 of the unmanned vending vehicle control method 200, it is ensured that the unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 provides services for consumers to purchase the goods they require.

It should be noted that when step S212 is executed and the scheduled purchase product information includes multiple product information, step S212 can be set that the vehicle-mounted product information must include all of the product information before step S213 can be skipped and step S204 can be performed; also, step S213 can be skipped; It can be set to compare all the unmanned vending vehicles in the unmanned vending vehicle control system, select one of the unmanned vending vehicles with the most matching product information, and queue the corresponding call request into its corresponding dispatch information.

In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 further considers the unmanned vending vehicle 120c, which also carries the pencil product.

Based on the above, the scheduled purchase product BPa records the pencil product information, and the unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 receives the vehicle product information VPb and VPc from the unmanned vending vehicles 120b and 120c that records the pencil product in step S211.

Next, in step S212, the processing unit 112 determines that both the vehicle-mounted product information VPb and VPc contain the same pencil product information as the scheduled purchase product BPa.

When there is more than one unmanned vending vehicle carrying products that meet the predetermined purchase product information, the unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 can combine the aforementioned embodiments to calculate the distance between the unmanned vending vehicles 120b and 120c to a designated position included in the call request CRc. And the call request CRc is added to the dispatch sequence corresponding to the unmanned sales vehicle with a shorter moving distance.

According to the above embodiment, the unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 combines the aforementioned two technical means of screening unmanned vending vehicles carrying goods that consumers want to purchase, and calculating the moving distance, and further dispatching unmanned vending vehicles that are closer to the consumer's designated location. Achieve the technical effect of providing consumers with specified shopping needs and having the unmanned vending cart move within a short distance.

In an embodiment of the present disclosure, in addition to the third consumer sending a call request CRc through the terminal device ED3, it further includes a fourth consumer who wants to purchase an eraser and operates the terminal device ED4 to send a call request CRd to the server 110. The call request CRd includes the scheduled purchase product information BPb and records the eraser product information.

As in the previous embodiment, after the unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 receives the call request CRd, since only the unmanned vending vehicle 120a among the unmanned vending vehicles 120a, 120b and 120c carries the eraser product, the processing unit 112 will filter out the eraser product when performing step S212. The unmanned vending vehicle 120a then generates a movement instruction corresponding to the call request CRd and sends it to the unmanned vending vehicle 120a, controlling the unmanned vending vehicle 120a to move to the location specified by the fourth consumer in the call request CRd.

According to the above embodiment, when the unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 receives more than one call request, and these call requests all contain scheduled purchase product information, the processing unit 112 of the server 110 will separately include the scheduled purchase product information according to the different call requests. , select the unmanned vending vehicle with the same product in the vehicle product information, and then control it to go to the designated location corresponding to the call request to meet the different shopping needs of multiple consumers.

Although several embodiments are described in detail above as examples, the unmanned vending vehicle control system, the unmanned vending vehicle control method and the non-transitory computer-readable storage media proposed in the present disclosure can also be used in other systems, hardware, software, storage media or a combination thereof. Therefore, the protection scope of the present disclosure should not be limited to the specific implementation manners described in the embodiments of the present disclosure, but shall be determined by the appended patent application scope.

It will be obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to which this disclosure belongs that various modifications and changes can be made in the structure of the present disclosure without departing from the scope or spirit of the present disclosure. In view of the foregoing, the protection scope of the present disclosure also covers modifications and changes within the scope of the appended patent applications.

100: Unmanned vending car control system 110:Server 111: Communication unit 112: Processing unit 120,120a,120b,120c: Unmanned vehicle sales ED1,ED2,ED3,ED4: terminal device 200: Control method of unmanned vending car S201~S206, S211~S213: steps CRa, CRb, CRc, CRd: call request MRa, MRb: movement command O: vehicle position A,B: designated location Da, Db: moving distance BPa, BPb: scheduled purchase product information VPa, VPb, VPc: vehicle product information

In order to make the above and other objects, features, advantages and embodiments of the present disclosure more obvious and understandable, the accompanying drawings are described as follows: Figure 1 is a schematic diagram of an unmanned vending vehicle control system according to an embodiment of the present disclosure; Figure 2 is a flow chart of an unmanned vending vehicle control method according to an embodiment of the present disclosure; Figure 3 is a schematic diagram of an unmanned vending vehicle control system receiving a call request and generating a sequence according to an embodiment of the present disclosure; and Figure 4 is a schematic diagram showing that the unmanned vending vehicle control system 100 according to an embodiment of the present disclosure dispatches unmanned vending vehicles or arranges the dispatch sequence according to the scheduled purchase product information required by different call requests.

Domestic storage information (please note in order of storage institution, date and number) without Overseas storage information (please note in order of storage country, institution, date, and number) without

100: Unmanned vending car control system

110:Server

111: Communication unit

112: Processing unit

120: Unmanned car sales

ED1, ED2, ED3: terminal devices

Claims (9)

An unmanned vending vehicle control system is used to control an unmanned vending vehicle. The unmanned vending vehicle control system includes: A server, communication connected to the unmanned vending car and multiple terminal devices, the server includes: A communication unit configured to receive a plurality of call requests from the terminal devices, the call requests containing information on a plurality of designated locations; A processing unit coupled to the communication unit, wherein the processing unit is used to sort the call requests and generate a vehicle dispatching order, and the processing unit sequentially generates a plurality of movement instructions corresponding to the call requests according to the vehicle dispatching order, Sent to the unmanned vending vehicle through the communication unit, the unmanned vending vehicle moves sequentially to the designated locations corresponding to the call requests according to the movement instructions. The unmanned vending vehicle control system as described in claim 1, wherein the processing unit generates the vehicle dispatch sequence based on the time when the call requests are received. The unmanned vending vehicle control system as described in claim 1, wherein the communication unit is used to receive a vehicle position from the unmanned vending vehicle, and the processing unit is used to calculate a plurality of movement distances of the vehicle position relative to the designated locations, And generate the dispatching order according to the movement distance. The unmanned vending vehicle control system as described in claim 1, wherein one of the call requests includes a scheduled purchase product information, the communication unit is used to receive vehicle-mounted product information from the unmanned vending vehicle, and the processing unit further uses to execute: Compare whether the scheduled purchase product information matches the vehicle product information; When the scheduled purchase product information matches the vehicle-mounted product information, a movement instruction corresponding to one of the call requests is generated; and When the scheduled purchase product information and the vehicle-mounted product information do not match, one of the call requests is excluded from the dispatch sequence of the unmanned vending vehicle. A method for controlling unmanned vending vehicles, including: Receive a plurality of call requests from a plurality of terminal devices, the call requests including a plurality of designated locations; Sort the call requests to generate a vehicle dispatch sequence; Generate a plurality of movement instructions corresponding to the call requests in sequence according to the dispatching order; Send the movement instructions to the unmanned vending vehicle; and The unmanned vending vehicle moves sequentially to the designated locations corresponding to the call requests according to the movement instructions. The method for controlling unmanned vending vehicles as described in claim 5, wherein the order of dispatching vehicles is generated based on the time when the call requests are received. The unmanned vending vehicle control method as described in request item 5 further includes the following steps: Receive a vehicle location from the unmanned vending vehicle; and Calculate a plurality of moving distances of the vehicle's position relative to the designated locations, and generate the dispatching order based on the magnitude of the moving distances. The unmanned vending car control method as described in claim 5, wherein one of the call requests includes a predetermined purchase product information, the unmanned vending car control method further includes the following steps: Receive vehicle-mounted product information from the unmanned vending vehicle; Compare the scheduled purchase product information and the vehicle product information to see if they match; and When the scheduled purchase product information and the vehicle-mounted product information do not match, one of the call requests is excluded from the dispatch sequence of the unmanned vending vehicle. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having at least one instruction stored thereon. When a processing unit executes the instructions, the instructions execute an unmanned vending vehicle control method. The unmanned vending vehicle control method includes Following steps: Receive a plurality of call requests from a plurality of terminal devices, the call requests including a plurality of designated locations; Sort the call requests to generate a vehicle dispatch sequence; Generate a plurality of movement instructions corresponding to the call requests in sequence according to the dispatching order; Send the movement instructions to the unmanned vending vehicle; and The unmanned vending vehicle moves sequentially to the designated locations corresponding to the call requests according to the movement instructions.

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