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Large supermarkets, chain stores and enterprises with large-scale warehousing put forward higher standards and requirements for the automation and informatization of warehouses. As one of the fast-growing commercial supermarkets in China, the traditional warehouse management mode has restricted the rapid development of Yonghui Superstores to a certain extent. The purpose of this paper is to find out how the existing warehouse mode can be changed and to solve the existing problems of warehouse management of Yonghui Superstores.

This research puts forward construction of warehouse center, which is based on radio frequency identification (RFID) and sensor technology, then designs the model for receiving, storage, operations management, distribution and outbound to solve the existing problems of warehouse management of Yonghui Superstores.

What technologies should be adopted to meet storage requirements? How to monitor the storage environment in real time and improve the operation and management level of the warehouse? This study found that building a warehouse center based on RFID and sensor technology was a good solution.

The Yonghui Superstores warehouse center model lacks corresponding simulation experiments, and the investment and income are difficult to estimate quantitatively.

This paper has designed and discussed the warehouse center model based on RFID and sensor technology, which provides a few references for the actual investment and construction of a warehouse center. In addition, the warehouse center model has strong generalized applicability and could be widely used in various enterprises.

The warehouse center could improve the warehouse management level of Yonghui Superstores and change the traditional warehouse management mode. To some extent, it improves the enterprise flexibility of the market, which will be of great significance to improve business efficiency and enhance brand image and competitiveness.

This study takes Yonghui Superstores as a case to analyze the problems of warehousing management in detail and then designs a warehouse center based on RFID and sensor technology. The study discusses the location and distribution, software and hardware selection, benefits evaluation, significances and return on investment, which makes the warehouse center model versatile, technically feasible and economically applicable.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of a robotic cleaning system for applying on the glass facade of the control tower at the Guangzhou Airport, in Guangzhou, China.

Four similar robotic cleaning systems are designed for a reversed cone‐shape glass facade at the top of the control tower. One system is composed of a robot moving along and cleaning the facade, and an automatic conveyer positioning, securing, supplying energy and water to, and recycling the dirty water from the robot. An on‐board controller enables the system to work in a remote control mode or a fully automated mode under the supervision of an operator.

This paper presents how to integrate the attaching, moving, cleaning and securing functions into one robotic system for the high rise glass facade, and focuses on the kinematics, the control and sensor system and the cleaning navigation. In particular, the real time control method of the vacuum in the cup is discussed to ensure high cleaning quality and security.

Since the cleaning system proposed in this paper is a custom‐built one, the generalization of its design idea should be tested in other applications.

The paper includes the implications for the development of automatic cleaning system for the high‐rise buildings with reversed inclining glass façade.

The robotic cleaning system described in this paper is the first fully automated cleaning machine for the reversed inclining glass facade in China. It works effectively and reliably on the control tower of the Guangzhou airport.

This paper aims to present a new intelligent wall-climbing welding robot system for large-scale steel structure manufacture, which is composed of robot body, control system and welding system.

The authors design the robot system according to application requirements, validate the design through simulation and experiments and use the robot in actual production.

Experimental results show that the robot system satisfies the demands of automatic welding of large-scale ferromagnetic structure, which contributes much to on-site manufacturing of such structures.

The robot can work with better quality and efficiency compared with manual welding and other semi-automatic welding devices, which can much improve large-scale steel structure manufacturing.

The robot system is a novel solution for large-scale steel structures welding. There are three major advantages: the robot body with reliable adsorption ability, large payload capability and good mobility which meet the requirements of welding; the control system with good welding seam tracking accuracy and intelligent automatic welding ability; and friendly human – computer interface which makes the robot easy to use.

In recent times, the construction industry is being influenced by technological innovations when delivering a better, more effective and efficient desired project, cyber-physical systems (CPSs) offer a coupling of the physical and engineered systems by monitoring, coordinating, controlling and integrating their operations. This study aims to examine the level of awareness of professionals and usage of CPSs for construction projects in Nigerian construction industry.

The target population for this study was the professionals in the construction industry consisting Architects, Quantity Surveyors, Engineers and Builders. Data collection was through the use of a structured questionnaire administered to the target population. The data was analyzed by using statistical tools.

This study concluded that the construction professionals in the Nigerian construction industry are mostly aware about the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, global positioning system, microphone, speakers and camera as the most widely used CPSs in construction industry. HVAC systems was also found to be the mostly adopted technologies in the construction industry.

This study recommended that platforms that increase the awareness and encourage the usage of CPSs in construction industry should be encouraged by stakeholders concerned with management of construction projects. Such include electronic construction and adoption of blockchain technology.

The purpose of this paper is to present an omni‐directional floor‐cleaning robot equipped with four omni‐directional wheels. The research purposes are to design a robot for cleaning jobs in domestic, narrow and crowded places and to provide a robotics‐study platform in a laboratory.

The robot system using Swedish wheels, one dust collector (brush) switching device and a sort of air‐bag sensing device is designed. The kinematics and the motion control conditions of the robot are analyzed. Specifically, a design method of wheels is described.

The configuration of the robot, parameters of the wheel and controlling methods are studied and demonstrated. The smooth locomotion capability and high‐working efficiency are verified by experiments.

The robot can perform its work in semi‐autonomous and tele‐operated mode. Moreover, the robot can pivot around, avoid obstacles and is provided with automatic power management system.

The research target is to provide a kind of robotic cleaner especially for crowded public or narrow places and educational robotics‐study platform in a laboratory.

According to the requirements of servicing and deorbiting the failure satellites, especially the tumbling ones on geosynchronous orbit, this paper aims to design a docking mechanism to capture these tumbling satellites in orbit, to analyze the dynamics of the docking system and to develop a new collision force-limited control method in various docking speeds.

The mechanism includes a cone-rod mechanism which captures the apogee engine with a full consideration of despinning and damping characteristics and a locking and releasing mechanism which rigidly connects the international standard interface ring (Marman rings, such as 937B, 1194 and 1194A mechanical interface). The docking mechanism was designed under-actuated, aimed to greatly reduce the difficulty of control and ensure the continuity, synchronization and force uniformity under the process of repeatedly capturing, despinning, locking and releasing the tumbling satellite. The dynamic model of docking mechanism was established, and the impact force was analyzed in the docking process. Furthermore, a collision detection and compliance control method is proposed by using the active force-limited Cartesian impedance control and passive damping mechanism design.

A variety of conditions were set for the docking kinematics and dynamics simulation. The simulation and low-speed docking experiment results showed that the force translation in the docking phase was stable, the mechanism design scheme was reasonable and feasible and the proposed force-limited Cartesian impedance control could detect the collision and keep the external force within the desired value.

The paper presents a universal docking mechanism and force-limited Cartesian impedance control approach to capture the tumbling non-cooperative satellite. The docking mechanism was designed under-actuated to greatly reduce the difficulty of control and ensure the continuity, synchronization and force uniformity. The dynamic model of docking mechanism was established. The impact force was controlled within desired value by using a combination of active force-limited control approach and passive damping mechanism.

The CIM framework pursues the integration of components in a manufacturing enterprise by means of computer systems. This, however, may be obstructed due to heterogeneity in the field: programmable controllers, robots, sensors and actuators, etc. in communications: different kinds of networks and/or field buses; and in the programming tools for all these devices. Thus a solution is needed to integrate heterogeneous software/hardware components in a well‐defined and flexible fashion. This paper seeks to address these issues.

This paper proposes a metalanguage, called H, and a set of tools that serve for designing, implementing, deploying, and debugging distributed heterogeneous software on the shopfloor. The metalanguange includes fault‐tolerance and real‐time mechanisms, among other features.

The use of a framework that can integrate different software and hardware components enables the engineer to take advantage of the best features of each existing technology. The use of object‐oriented techniques, concurrent and distributed programming, and the isolation of heterogeneous parts, have also important benefits in the reusability and optimality of the solutions.

The use of a metalanguage like H, that separates the parts of the application that depend on particular (heterogeneous) components from the parts that are portable, has, as a main implication, important improvements in the development time, effort, and cost of CIM projects.

H is the first metalanguage coping with heterogeneity through the complete development cycle of software for manufacturing applications. It also provides a formal and well‐defined framework for future extensions.