Sustainable Intralogistics due to Uniform Software and Modular Transport Entities

Abstract The current trend in internal value stream structures shows a clear development towards a combination of the specific advantages of the operation-oriented and the process-oriented production systems. All scientific approaches have in common that flexible intralogistics production networks require an autonomous and intelligent transportation systems that is not designed for a specific task, but can take on different transport roles due to their versatility. However, a comprehensive analysis of current designs and research projects in the field of AGVs and intralogistics transport robots show that there is neither the necessary interoperability of different systems nor a system architecture that addresses a flexible material flow independent of the physical design of the transportation system. AGVs mainly have a central control system, which manages the generation of transport orders and their disposition on the vehicles. In addition, the routes are specified centrally for the vehicles, even if they have free navigation. The individual transport unit is therefore only an executing machine that processes the assigned transport orders without any influence on order dispatching or route planning. Therefore, these AGV approaches do not have the flexibility and autonomy required for an intralogistics production network. The research project addresses the necessary interoperability of logistics systems and the abandonment of proprietary standalone solutions. For this purpose, methods for digitizing the workspace, route planning and path execution using a service-oriented architecture (SOA) were developed. A central component of this architecture is the approach described in the paper to enable decentralized path planning on the vehicles. Therefore, the path planning must be applicable to different target platforms without implementation effort and the vehicle software must be designed independently of the application. This approach allows intralogistics systems to be flexible and adaptable, resulting in a more sustained use of these systems.