Analysis of the application of RFID technology in automated storage yards

With the rapid development of information technology, great progress has been made in port production and management technology. The intelligent level of automated bridges in the port yard has become an important label for improving the productivity of the terminal. Customs offices in various places are focusing on modern scientific and technological means, striving to build a new and convenient customs clearance model, and provide good management and services in the import and export links.

Among the global port and bridge equipment, tire-type cranes (hereinafter referred to as tire-type cranes) account for a larger proportion, while rail-type cranes account for a smaller proportion. Therefore, the development of automated and intelligent green ports is inseparable from tire cranes. Similarly, the automation transformation of tire cranes will play a positive role in promoting the automation and intelligence of green ports and port machinery manufacturing enterprises. Under the current standard conditions for container information management, modern computer technology, modern electronic technology, software Engineering technology, database technology, and RFID technology are combined to achieve efficient data collection, automatic equipment control, and automatic business processing at automated yard entrances. Yard system.

It is worth noting that RFID technology has its own particularity, and it is necessary to comprehensively consider the characteristics of on-site machinery and operating environment, actual use requirements, intelligent radio frequency technology implementation concepts and overall operational functional structure and other key aspects in planning and design, and integrate RFID intelligent design with Taoism. It is used in conjunction with the gate system and integrated into the terminal yard management. It is designed and implemented based on the structure and function of the entire production operation system. It is independent of each other and has many interactions and correlations with other operating subsystems in the port, ultimately providing a function for the terminal. Complete, advanced equipment, easy to operate, safe and reliable, economical investment automation system integration solution.

1. System design

The RFID and gate system architecture configured at the terminal's automated yard entrance is designed as a three-layer architecture. The design idea of the three-tier architecture is based on interface standardization, which fully meets the scalability of the system and the flexibility of system composition.

System design ideas:

1. Provide a device connection framework for system software and hardware standard interfaces (including RFID reading and writing devices, vehicle detectors, etc.), provide original data for the production management system, and at the same time be responsible for the linkage control of the equipment. The system provides seamless integrated connections, and various devices can work independently or coordinately under the control of the system's timing control logic.

2. Use modern advanced software engineering to provide information processing system architecture based on business processes and reasonably standardize data flow. It also provides an easy-to-use, user-friendly client operating system. The design of the architecture follows advancement, scalability, flexibility and standardization.

1.2 System design architecture

The smart yard RFID and gate system structure is a three-layer architecture design. The first layer is the client (user interface), which provides user-friendly access to the system; the second layer is the application server, which is responsible for the implementation of business logic; the third layer It is a data server, responsible for the storage, access and optimization of data information. Since the business logic is extracted to the application server, the burden on the client is greatly reduced, so it is also called a thin client structure.

1.3 System architecture advantages

The three-tier structure adds an application server to the traditional two-tier structure, processing the application logic separately, so that the user interface and application logic are located on different platforms, and the communication protocol between the two is defined by the system itself. This structural design allows application logic to be shared by all users, which is the biggest difference between two-tier application software and three-tier application software.

First, by dividing the entire system into different logical blocks, application system development and maintenance costs are greatly reduced. The three-tier structure separates the presentation part and business logic part according to the client layer and application server. Communication between the client and application server, application server and database server, and data exchange between heterogeneous platforms can all be done through middleware or related programs to implement. When the business logic of the database or application server changes, the client does not need to change, and vice versa, which greatly improves the reusability of system modules, shortens the development cycle, and reduces maintenance costs. Secondly, the scalability of the system is greatly enhanced. Modular systems are easy to expand in both vertical and horizontal directions: on the one hand, the system can be upgraded to a larger and more powerful platform, and at the same time, the scale can be appropriately increased to enhance the network application of the system. Because it gets rid of the limitation of system isomorphism, distributed data processing becomes possible.

1.4 System architecture implementation

The intelligent yard RFID automatic identification and gate system uses the identified vehicle information combined with the terminal operation management system to provide data comparison for the entry operation, dynamically provide operation information to the remote core control staff, and provide alarms and warnings for various error messages. hint. For such a complex system, the system design structure adopted directly determines the stability, reliability, and practicality of the system. This system design adopts a three-layer software system architecture to balance the resource utilization of the entire system by various hardware devices and related systems, optimize system resources to the greatest extent, and make the system flexible, easy to use and maintain, stable in operation, and good in openness , flexible expansibility and hierarchical scalability.

2. System composition

The terminal automated RTG yard RFID system consists of three parts: the RFID data collection system, the RTG channel barrier system, and the exit barrier system.

2.1 RFID data collection system

The RFID data collection system consists of electronic license plates, ultra-high frequency RFID Readers, RFID Antennas, embedded hosts, electromagnetic induction coils, vehicle detectors, etc. In the yard, the RFID crossing weak current box equipment is installed on the crossing metal pole, the RFID antenna is installed on the door frame pole of the metal pole, and RFID Card readers, industrial computers, network switches, vehicle detectors and other equipment are installed in the equipment box. As shown in Figure 4. The RFID electronic tag is affixed to the front windshield of the vehicle and triggers card reading through the crossing.

2.2 RTG channel gate system

When the RTG transfers to another yard, the remote control center needs to know that the RTG leaves or enters another yard, so an RTG channel gate system is set up for this purpose. After receiving the movement command, the safety personnel are responsible for opening the RTG channel gate manually or through wireless remote control. After all RTGs have passed and safety is confirmed, the channel can be closed manually or via wireless remote control by dropping the bar on site.

2.3 Vehicle exit barrier system

The main function of the vehicle exit barrier system is to restrict vehicles from entering the yard in the opposite direction. It consists of exit gate, vehicle detector, network control and ground induction coil. When the vehicle leaves and approaches the exit, the lift pole is triggered, and the gate lifts the pole to release the vehicle. After exiting the channel and leaving the drop pole ground sense, the barrier gate automatically drops the pole. After the vehicle leaves the barrier and falls down, the barrier system will send a vehicle departure signal to the remote control center in the port through the network controller, which facilitates the background management system to count vehicle operations. When a vehicle traveling in the opposite direction enters the ground-sensing coil barrier gate with down pole, it does not lift the pole.

3. Implementation effect

After the functional debugging and testing of the RFID and gate systems in the terminal yard were completed, four automated tire cranes in the two yards were put into use. The performance of the RFID and gate systems in the yard is stable, and the entire yard automation system is in good condition. The successful application of this system not only reduces the operating pressure of the operators of the automated tire crane remote control center, but also makes it possible to understand the situation of the trucks entering and leaving the yard. Make the operation of the automated tire crane automatic scheduling system more reasonable.

4. Conclusion and outlook

The system can not only automatically identify license plate numbers with RFID and realize automatic operation verification during port operations, but can also control the rapid opening of gates in the yard, bringing convenience to port management and efficient operations. The system hardware structure is simple, the investment cost is low, and it is easy to implement. It is very suitable for large container terminals with unmanned management of the container area, and has good industry promotion value.