Building an AGV: safety system

For an industrial automation company it’s almost a matter of course to explore the possibilities of autonomous systems. Maybe you are even looking to design and produce your own AGV or autonomous mobile robot (AMR). To make this a little easier, we wrote this series of articles. Each one highlights an important part of the system design of an AMR, and we provide tips and considerations for that subsystem.

This time, we treat the safety system: an essential part of the AGV to ensure the safety of workers. But what are your options, and how do you decide what to use?

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5 questions to ask yourself before developing your own AMR

As an automation solutions provider, you’re always looking for the best way to help your clients boost their efficiency. Robot technology seems like an innovative way to provide more flexible and efficient automation solutions so you’re looking to add autonomous mobile robots to your product offerings, and you believe you should be the one to develop them. This is a costly investment though, and you’re not the only one in the race, so you should carefully consider your options. In this post, we’ll go through 5 questions to ask yourself to make sure you’re in the right position to start development.

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Why global navigation accuracy is not important (and what to look for instead)

One question many people ask us is: “Can you navigate with X mm accuracy?” And of course, the question is understandable, the newer generations of robots are detached from infrastructure such as rails or induction guidance and they navigate increasingly complex environments. Generally they need to interact with other devices in the environment. Even a robotic vacuum cleaner needs to accurately position itself on its dock to charge its battery. However, this does not automatically mean the robot needs to localize itself accurately all the time. But how do we get a robot to do its work reliably, without accurate global positioning?

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Case study: Accerion Jupiter

The postal industry is subjected to significant fluctuations in workload. To scale up during busy times such as Christmas, temporary distribution centers are set up. Automation on such short term in such a highly dynamic environment is rarely worthwhile. RUVU were given the challenge to develop a robot software application for this use case. Key was to make it easy to demonstrate the possibilities of mobile robots for someone with minimum knowledge about Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs).

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How to get your robot from A to B

In e-commerce, warehousing, and logistics, margins are shrinking. It’s harder and harder to come by affordable personnel for harvesting and processing greenhouse produce. The same holds for nurses in hospitals and personnel in the manufacturing industry. These developments push the demand for automation, including Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR). Many leading automation companies seem to be investing in the development of such solutions. But what should you think about when controlling such a system? How to get it from A to B?

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