Weight reduction of a carriage of a stacker crane is achieved. A stacker crane includes: a mast; a carriage provided so as to be capable of being raised and lowered with respect to the mast; a movable section mounted to the carriage and configured to be movable with respect to the carriage; and a movement control instrument configured to control motive power supplied to the movable section, the movement control instrument being disposed outside the carriage.

Storage and retrieval systems demand time and space efficient approaches. Embodiments herein provide a storage system with guided plate based lifting apparatus for payload loading-unloading on storage rack. The system deploys an Automated Guided Vehicle/Autonomous Mobile Robot (AGV/AMR) mounted with multiple lifting apparatuses in between two adjacent storage racks. The racks are modified with guide plates having entry cutouts for horizontal movements and entry guides for vertical movement of lifting apparatus. Ramp provided in the guide plates at the bottom of racks ensures there is enough clearance for lifting apparatus to go inside an aisle and have smooth vertical lifting. Wheel retention mechanism guides the vertical lifting maintaining required clearance. A conveyor belt mechanism mounted to base plate of lifting apparatus consists of geared rotary motor for conveyor belt that has a forward and backward movement, enabling the lifting apparatus to load/unload the payload inside/outside the racks.

An article storage facility is disclosed that is capable of performing an appropriate transport operation on a container group even when a container group that includes a plurality of containers in a stacked state is placed on a placement surface in an inclined state. The control device performs inclination computation processing to obtain a placement inclination ? that is an inclination of a container group Cg placed on a placement surface F relative to a Z direction, based on coordinate information, bottom surface dimension information, and container group position information that are stored in a storage unit, and individual position computation processing to obtain individual position information that indicates a position, in X and Y directions, of each of the containers C in the tiers included in the container group Cg, based on the container group position information, the placement inclination ?, and the height dimension information, and controls a movement mechanism based on the individual position information.

Utilities (e.g., systems, apparatuses, methods) that reduce robotic assembly contention in media element storage libraries by translating (e.g., displacing) a robot arm of a first robotic assembly mounted over a first storage array of a storage library away from a central reference plane as the robot arm is being pivoted into a first position adjacent the first storage array to allow a robot arm of a second robotic assembly to slide or otherwise move past the robot arm of the first robotic assembly, even when the robot arms of the first and second robot arms are disposed at the same height (e.g., along a z-axis) within the storage library. For instance, a pivot member of the robot arm may be mounted on a carriage that is configured to translate between the first and second storage arrays in response to the pivot member being pivoted about a pivot axis.

A travel body includes a wheel drive source for driving a drive wheel, a support arm swingable relative to a travel body section and supporting the drive wheel and the wheel drive source, a swing support attached to the travel body section and supporting the swing fulcrum of the support arm, and an elastic unit. The swing support is detachably attached to the travel body section. The elastic unit includes an abutting section that abuts, from a second side in the swing direction, a target spot located away from the swing fulcrum of the support arm, and an elastic section that biases the abutting section abutting the support arm toward a first side in the swing direction.

A system for zero radius direction changes in an independent cart system includes a drive magnet array movably mounted to a mover. The drive magnet array includes at least one drive magnet configured to engage an electromagnetic field generated by coils extending along a track and a first engagement member for selectively positioning the drive magnet array between at least a first position and a second position. A switch track segment defines at least a first and second path for the mover. The first path includes coils to generate the electromagnetic field along the first path, and the second path includes coils to generate the electromagnetic field to along the second path. The drive magnet array is aligned with the first path when the drive magnet array is in the first position and with the second path when the drive magnet array is in the second position.

There is provided a platform vehicle for a robotic system of a warehouse, the platform vehicle configured to vertically traverse racks of the warehouse. The platform vehicle comprising a first engagement assembly configured to selectively engage a first rack of the two racks; a second engagement assembly configured to selectively engage a second rack; a first cam guide configured to constrain the movement of the first engagement assembly; and a second cam guide configured to constrain the movement of the second engagement assembly.

An automated parcel terminal having one or more entry and retrieval points is disclosed. The terminal has a lift cage and a loader that allows moving specifically designed trays to and from shelf columns on two sides of the lift cage. The lift and loader assembly allows the loader to serve multiple shelf columns in the terminal. The loader has a back cover configured to protect the users from moving parts of the terminal, but also to support trays in a shelf column while the loader pulls one tray out from the shelf column.

A stocker includes a first stacker crane and a second stacker crane each including a mast having a pair of surfaces orthogonal to a traveling direction and a transfer unit provided to be capable of being raised and lowered along one of the pair of surfaces and configured to transfer an article to and from a first rack and a second rack. The two cranes are disposed such that each face a direction opposite to a direction in which the one of the pair of surfaces on which the transfer unit is provided to be capable of being raised and lowered face each other in the traveling direction. A first space is provided with an entry area that the two cranes mutually enter. A controller controls traveling of the two cranes such that the two cranes do not collide with each other.

A storage assembly having a substantially parallelepipedal first storage rack and a second substantially parallelepipedal storage rack, a front transverse face of the first storage rack and a second rear transverse face of the second storage rack being connected to each other by at least one horizontal bracing structure.