Decentralized Intelligence: The Key for an Energy Efficient and Sustainable Intralogistics

Abstract Today’s material flow in factories is realized by different concepts of transport. Each of those specific conveyors has pros and cons due to its concept. In general, the “state of art” transport systems have a low flexibility of the path planning and are not suitable for dynamic transport requirements, wherefore they are designed for a specific application. Therefore, the object of the research is a cyber-physical material flow system with flexible, autonomous and collaborative vehicles combined with centralized sensors to digitalize the workspace. Furthermore, the number of vehicles in the system can be adjusted to the volume of the transport requirement, wherefore the system is suitable for different tasks in the intralogistics. The sustainability of this concept is given by two aspects. On the one hand by the individual path planning of each task also of small parts. On the other hand by the re-use of the system at changing transport volumes or requirements.