Real-time distributed vision-based network system for logistics applications

The communication network providing real-time image sharing between the planning office and the warehouse for supply chain management is presented in this paper. Middleware plays a major role in developing distributed system efficiently for communication between image capturing devices (Vision Node) and image processing node as well as the distributed nodes. The image distribution over the network in real-time manner is useful to numerous logistic applications, such as quality control of pick-and-pack service, planning of cargo and pallet loading, and vehicles tracking. A detail construction of the vision-based network system both with respect to image capturing devices and data transmission has been announced. A gigabit Ethernet network is acting as a backbone of the whole system. The employment of the Network Data Distribution Service (NDDS) for the real-time distributed vision-based network system is discussed and experimental result of the real-time and delay time properties in each part on the network were considered and presented in this paper. Test results show that NDDS is capable of supporting a distributed logistics vision system.