ShopBot Charging Station
A self-docking charging station for grocery collecting mobile robots
Affiliation:
Fulfil Solutions Co-op
Role:
Time Range:
Primary Mechanical Design Engineer
2021
Skills:
Mechanical Design, Sheet Metal, Industrial Automation, Mobile Robotics, Electrical Design, Design for Maintenance, High Volume Manufacturing, Technical Drawing, Sheet Metal Inserts, Fitment, Vendor Communication
Background:
This was one of the main projects I owned while co-oping at fulfil solutions, a small grocery automation company that was in stealth mode at the time. Due to their small size I was lucky to recieve outsized responsibility and ownership for a 18-year-old co-op. They developed a system where a vertically stacked industrial vending machine-like system would drop grocery items into a number of mobile robots carrying shopping bags. I was responsible for developing the charging station for these mobile robots. The charging station needed to be inexpensive, extremely low profile, easy to maintain and integrate with the pre-designed charging sockets on the mobile robots.
Images:
My Contributions:
• Learned sheet metal design (which has since become one of my specialties!)
• Integrated hardware, electronics into a compact, simple, and robust enclosed design
• Worked with technicians to understand maintenance and access needs. Developed a hinging panel to allow for easy access for internal maintenance
• Developed drawings and communicated with manufacturers to produce a run of 50 4-Robot charging stations
Outcomes:
This project has since been deployed at Fulfil's flagship grocery automation facility in Mountain View, CA. I do not know exactly how many of these have been built but I'd expect it to be in the range of 50-100. I have received feedback that the charging stations have been functioning well and that assembly and integration has gone smoothly.