Automated guided vehicles
Better in a swarm - more economical in a swarm?
Are cellular driverless transport vehicles more economical than forklift trucks? The Institute for Integrated Production Hanover (IPH) is investigating this in the "ZellFTF" research project.
Cellular AGVs are small driverless transport units that are able to work together and carry out larger transport jobs together. A small and maneuverable driverless transport unit is more suitable than a forklift truck when transporting small goods. The same applies if a company has several small transport units that can drive to several destinations independently of each other and thus complete several jobs at the same time, which would take a single forklift truck much more time and energy.
For large and heavy goods, however, the forklift truck is superior. Small AGVs reach their load limits here. Unless they are cellular AGVs that are able to work together. While a single AGV can transport a single small load carrier, four interconnected AGVs are capable of transporting a Euro pallet - and a network of six AGVs can handle even larger special formats. Companies are very flexible with such a transport system. Scientists at the KIT - Karlsruhe Institute of Technology have already researched the technical feasibility of such a transport system in the "KARIS" project.
However, no one has yet looked at this type of transportation from an economic perspective. This is the goal of the IPH's basic research project "ZellFTF". To this end, a mathematical optimization model based on a vehicle routing problem (VRP) is to be developed. The researchers want to run through various application scenarios and develop a heuristic in the form of a genetic algorithm that approximates an optimal solution.
This article appeared in issue 8-9/23
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