Design and Implementation of a Warehouse Control System Based on Integration of the Real and the Virtual

Proceedings of The 3rd International Conference on Innovative Research in Science and Engineering

Year: 2022

DOI:

[Fulltext]

Design and Implementation of a Warehouse Control System Based on Integration of the Real and the Virtual

Yen-Jen Chen and Guan-Qun Huang

ABSTRACT: 

Warehouse control system (WCS) is a control system that automatically sorts goods according to the task requirements of warehouse management system (WMS). To quickly verify the correctness and efficiency of a development of WCS, this research designs and implements WCS using the real programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and the real barcode readers (BCRs) to control the movement of goods in a virtual warehouse environment, where the items of goods are simulated among input stations, conveyor belts, checking stations, and output stations with 3D object-oriented modeling software. Each item of goods is an object instance recorded and controlled in the WCS and can be directed to the right place. During the development of the WCS software, a Python program is used to complete the virtual and real integration signaling interface between PLC and the simulation environment through Modbus and SLMP protocols, and the WCS writes tasks to the PLCs. The WCS receives the PLC delivery data, event data, and BCR delivery barcode via TCP/IP socket, and the data exchange of each process in the WCS is done by RPC remote program call. The WCS functions correctly and well; therefore, the design and implementation based on the virtual-real integration is verified workable.

keywords: warehouse control system; virtual-real integration; conveyor belt; PLC; Flexsim .