Design and simulation of a multimodal transport system consisting of FTF and UAV for a quasi-steady milkrun in an SME production environment

The material flow in a company can cause up to 80 % of the production cost price. An effective way to increase the efficiency of material flows is to use automated guided vehicles (AGVs) in a milkrun. Typically, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have layouts that are unsuitable for the introduction of FTF milkruns. Some sources or sinks cannot be served by the milkrun, creating a critical economic disadvantage for SMEs in managing intralogistics material flow.

A promising approach to address the described economic disadvantage of SMEs is multimodal transport systems consisting of AGVs and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). The sources and sinks that cannot be served by the FTF milkrun are approached by UAVs. The research project MulTraSys investigates this innovative concept.

The research project is based on the working hypothesis that in companies with small and light components – for example in the semiconductor industry – logistics performance increases when multimodal transport systems consisting of FTF and UAV are used and the FTF is used as a steady milkrun. To test this working hypothesis, the MulTraSys project will design and simulate a multimodal transport system consisting of an automated tugger FTF and several UAVs.