Project description

Situation:

Sustainable means of transport need to meet the requirements of innovative production concepts as well as physical restrictions in their field of use. Following the change towards buyer markets, modern production is characterized by universality, scalability, modularity, mobility and compatibility. A constant and secure supply of materials is dependent on a transport system with the same characteristics. Following the goals of German government`s sustainability strategy, companies are more than ever forced to take existing layouts into account. Since these brownfield approaches often do not have optimized material flows, sustainable means of transport must be able to adapt to difficult environments.

Need for action:

Automated guided vehicles systems (AGVs) implement versatile logistics systems for the provision of materials. At present, there a not yet standardized solutions available to provide a universal and robust localization and navigation in a mixed indoor and outdoor environment. For transport tasks in isolated indoor scenarios, a large variety of AGVs exist. However, these cannot be used for intermediate transport in-between buildings. Existing solutions for outdoor scenarios on the other hand do not meet the requirements of indoor operation.

Project objective:

The project researches a cost-efficient solution for localization and navigation of AGVs that enables intralogistics transports independent of ambient conditions. Based on an in-depth analysis of solutions of environmental perception utilizing cost-efficient sensors, a suitable solution for the use of AGVs in a mixed indoor and outdoor environment is found. Together with project partners, the result will be implemented, tested and validated using a reference AGV.

Benefits

• Expansion of use cases for AGVs
• Contribution to the realization of a self-managing intralogistics system
• Lean and cost-efficient material-flow solutions based on widely known technologies