LSCM R&D Centre eNews - December 2016

Dec 2016

New LSCM Technology Development

In order to strengthen the logistics sector in Hong Kong and enhance its competitiveness, the LSCM R&D Centre is committed to research and develop related technologies to support the industry. Recently, two new projects namely “Autonomous Guided Vehicle” and “Hong Kong Positioning Infrastructure based on GPS, Beidou and Ground based Augmentation System” have been carried out to improve business process of logistics companies.

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Autonomous Guided Vehicle

With the fast development pace of worldwide e-commerce, the demand for efficient warehouse management is getting higher. The LSCM R&D Centre is thus developing a cost-effective Autonomous Guided Vehicle (AGV) for warehouse applications. With its high accuracy and efficiency, the AGV developed by the Centre is suitable for use in local warehouse, factory and large-scale retailing shop. The AGV is capable of carrying goods and taking inventory during business closing hours. The operation of the AGV can utilize the available floor area of the warehouse as shelves can be stored in a dense arrangement.

The latest AGV is able to navigate around the warehouses by following tags/barcodes embedded on the floor of the warehouse with the deployment of ultra-wideband (UWB) positioning system, which ensures the navigation scope is within 10 cm and provides enhanced collision avoidance capability. This robot navigates around on a pre-determined route and assists in performing inventory tracking. A self-balancing mechanism is also designed and installed to the AGV which can support the balance of the shelves even when the AGV is operating in a warehouse with uneven landscape.

The Centre’s AGV can perform various tasks to meet local warehouse’s requirement.

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Hong Kong Positioning Infrastructure based on GPS, Beidou and Ground based Augmentation System

Real Time Kinematic (RTK) surveying is a technique used to improve the precision of position data derived from satellite-based positioning systems. It has been widely adopted in land and hydrographic surveying industries with centimeter level accuracy positioning. However, there are still measuring errors being reported from the unreliability of RTK technology which are caused by the availability of satellites, sensitivity to satellite geometry and carrier phase ambiguity.

As a result, our Centre aims to develop an satellite based positioning infrastructure to provide location based services to support economic development in Hong Kong by improving the currently used Hong Kong Satellite Positioning Reference Station Network (SatRef). The objectives of this project include enhancing the performance of the SatRef network by integrating Global Positioning System (GPS) and Beidou Navigation Satellite System, developing a more reliable Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) positioning with centimeter level accuracy, implementing Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) heighting in local areas to improve engineering and surveying efficiency, and providing a reliable platform with DGNSS (Differential GNSS) technologies for mobile operators in Hong Kong and the surrounding territories to support personal and vehicle positioning with meter level accuracy.

The team goes all the way to the top of the mountain to obtain gravity data for project usage.

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