Fully automatic operation of a driverless transport system

Six driverless transport systems (Automated Guided Vehicles or AGV's) drive autonomously to the battery station when their batteries are empty. An automatic change cart pulls the empty battery out of the AGV and drives it to an unoccupied charging station where the battery gets automatically connected and charged.
The heart of the battery management system trak | monitor 4.0 consists of an embedded edge controller on which the ARIGO Framework RUMO 4.0 is installed. The data of 13 chargers and the total number of 18 trak | collect battery controllers are continuously monitored and stored. The data for the system control of the fully autonomous application is exchanged via a standardized OPC-UA communication interface. The trak | monitor 4.0 informs the system control of the location of the battery which is intended for the replacement. Then the change cart will autonomously remove the battery from the loading area and drives it to the AGV where it gets inserted. After the successful change, the AGV can continue to perform its task with a fully charged battery.

A HOPPECKE battery controller trak | collect which is mounted on every battery records the discharge level and other battery data, even while driving. When the battery controller trak | collect detects a need for maintenance on a battery, the corresponding message is sent to the change cart and the battery will automatically be brought to a separate service area.

As soon as the battery controller is within the range of the trak | monitor 4.0, all stored and live data gets read out via Bluetooth.
The working distance of the special Bluetooth transmitter is up to 1000 meter.

Using an HTML browser extensive energy reports and charge cycle logs can be called up directly from the trak | monitor 4.0. In addition, the data and alarms can also be sent to a HOPPECKE cloud.