| Theme | Industry 4.0, Automation, Automated guided vehicles |
|---|---|
| Project title | Development of a heuristic modeling approach to study the efficiency of cellular AGVs in intralogistics (ZellFTF) |
| Project duration | 01.11.2022 – 31.10.2024 |
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| Press release |
A continuously growing number of product variants is presenting companies in the manufacturing and logistics sectors with increasing challenges. This increases the demands on transport logistics and the flexibility of the transport systems used.
One approach to making the transport process more flexible is the use of cellular transport units, which can be formed from autonomously operating driverless transport vehicles (AGVs), among other things. The individual AGVs are designed as modular units that can be variably interconnected depending on the requirements and size of the products to be transported. Cellular AGVs offer, among other things, the advantage that they can transport products of different sizes and are easily scalable compared to inflexible systems by increasing the number of vehicles used in the system.
The aim of the ZellFTF research project is to investigate the economic and logistical efficiency of using cellular transport units compared to conventional approaches (e.g. transport with forklifts). To achieve this, the research project will formulate a mathematical optimization model for the vehicle routing problem (VRP) and implement a heuristic to solve the model. Afterwards, a simulation model will be created to perform a scenario study to validate the approach.
Publications about the project
The growing complexity of manufacturing and logistics operations, driven by increasing product diversity and labor shortages, requires flexible and scalable transportation solutions. Cellular Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) offer a promising alternative to conventional transport systems by enabling autonomous and collaborative transport of goods. This research evaluates the performance of cellular AGVs compared to classical AGVs and tow tractors based on key logistics metrics, including transport throughput time, machine utilization, and number of products transported. An event-driven simulation environment was developed in Python to model logistics and production processes, incorporating transportation constraints and optimization models. The results show that cellular AGVs significantly reduce throughput time in complex logistics environments. For the same transport capacity, their average throughput time can be up to 55% lower than that of classic AGVs and tow tractors. In production environments with ten recurring delivery relationships, cellular AGVs reduce transport time by up to 37% and achieve the highest machine utilization (87%). Their modularity increases efficiency by dynamically adapting to changing transport requirements. This study demonstrates the benefits of cellular AGVs in improving transportation performance, particularly in complex, high-throughput environments. The results support their adoption over traditional transportation systems.
Intralogistics, automated guided vehicles, simulation, logistic target values, transport efficiency
As the number of product variants continues to grow, the need for flexibility in intralogistics is becoming increasingly apparent. One potential solution to this challenge is the use of cellular automated guided vehicles, which can be variably interconnected depending on the size of the product to be transported. This article presents an optimization model for solving a vehicle routing problem for cellular automated guided vehicles. Furthermore, a recursive method is presented that determines an optimal transport sequence based on the solution of the model. The optimization model is implemented in a specially developed model environment and solved for a dynamic, illustrative use case. Subsequently, logistical target variables are evaluated in order to assess the solution of the optimization model. The exemplary application of the optimization model demonstrates the feasibility of modeling cellular transportation with automated guided vehicles and evaluating its performance based on logistical target variables.
AGV, cellular transport units, optimization model, simulation, logistical target values
A continuously growing number of product variants increases the demands on the flexibility of intralogistics transportation. One way to achieve greater flexibility is the use of cellular automated guided vehicles, which can be variably interconnected depending on the size of the product to be transported. This article explains the characteristics of cellular automated guided vehicles and the relationships between influencing variables of the cellular transport system and economic and logistical target variables.
Intralogistics, automated guided vehicles, cellular transport units
