Quick Start Guide: Com­mis­sion­ing for SOTO — Map­ping and Modeling

Step 1: Map­ping the Work­ing Envi­ron­ment for SOTO

Dur­ing the map­ping process, you will use the Mag­a­zino Fleet Man­ager (MFM) to cre­ate a pre­cise local­i­sa­tion map of your pro­duc­tion envi­ron­ment. This map serves as the foun­da­tion for SOTO’s autonomous nav­i­ga­tion and ensures that it always moves safely in this environment.

The MFM is a web appli­ca­tion that pro­vides you with a com­pre­hen­sive overview of your SOTO fleet’s oper­a­tion and per­for­mance. The Fleet Man­ager empow­ers users to:

• Com­plete the entire SOTO setup process, regard­less of tech­ni­cal skill level, espe­cially map­ping and modeling
• Make quick changes to robot’s work­ing envi­ron­ment through user-friendly man­age­ment tools
• Seam­less inte­grate with exter­nal VDA5050 mas­ter con­trollers, enabling scal­a­bil­ity with other AMRs via mod­u­lar set-up of the MFM
• Easy and cost-effec­tive inte­gra­tion into exist­ing IT land­scapes, sup­port­ing func­tions such as mate­r­ial account­ing and tracking

Let’s start by map­ping the work­ing envi­ron­ment for the SOTO — a sim­ple and straight­for­ward process:

Man­ual Dri­ving Mode for Mapping

The map­ping process starts by switch­ing SOTO into map­ping mode on the dis­play and con­nect­ing the hand­held con­troller, which feels much like a gam­ing console.

Now use the con­troller to steer SOTO man­u­ally through all rel­e­vant work areas of your pro­duc­tion site.

Record­ing the work­ing environment

As you nav­i­gate SOTO through pro­duc­tion, you can see the map form­ing in real time on the robot’s display.

The robot’s laser scan­ners, which are located on the roof and on the drive base, cre­ate a two-dimen­sional image of the sur­round­ings.

The scan­ners ful­fil dif­fer­ent tasks for the SOTO’s per­cep­tion of its surroundings.

Laser scan­ner for safe nav­i­ga­tion and orientation

The laser scan­ners on the bot­tom of SOTO work at a height of 12 cm. They detect the imme­di­ate sur­round­ings and posi­tion of the han­dover sta­tions dur­ing the map­ping process. Dur­ing oper­a­tion, these sen­sors play a cru­cial role in safety and navigation.

As the envi­ron­ment near the ground can change fre­quently, the laser scan­ner mounted on the roof — at a height of 2.2 metres — pro­vides sta­tic struc­tures such as walls and pil­lars dur­ing the map­ping process.

Local­iza­tion of the Robot

Dur­ing live oper­a­tion, the robot com­pares the map to the live read­ings of the laser scan­ners. This ensures that it can accu­rately posi­tion itself in the phys­i­cal environment.

This is called local­iza­tion, and it’s done pri­mar­ily with the top mounted laser scan­ner due to its long range and abil­ity to see fixed structures

Prepa­ra­tion of the work­ing envi­ron­ment for the map­ping process

The more real­is­tic the map­ping, the bet­ter the mod­el­ling result will be.

For pre­cise map­ping, it is there­fore impor­tant that shelves and other per­ma­nent obsta­cles are in the intended posi­tion and prop­erly prepared.

This ensures that the mapped envi­ron­ment cor­re­sponds as closely as pos­si­ble to the sub­se­quent work­ing envi­ron­ment and that SOTO can work efficiently.

Once the map­ping has been com­pleted, you can con­tinue with the mod­el­ling on your PC or laptop.

Step 2: Mod­el­ling the work­ing envi­ron­ment for SOTO

In the mod­el­ling phase, you define the work­ing envi­ron­ment based on the pre­vi­ously recorded map using Mag­a­zino Fleet Man­ager (MFM). The map is auto­mat­i­cally uploaded to the MFM.

You now add way­points, han­dover sta­tions, spe­cial zones and other ori­en­ta­tion points to the map. Most impor­tantly, you pro­vide the 3D infor­ma­tion that SOTO needs to inter­act with the han­dover sta­tions, such as con­veyor belts and shelves.

The mod­el­ling process cov­ers the fol­low­ing steps:

1. Defin­ing the work­ing environment
2. Mod­el­ling the shelves and plac­ing them on the map
3. Adding routes, traf­fic direc­tion and traf­fic rules
4. Defin­ing park­ing posi­tions and load­ing points
5. Set­ting ‘fences’, i.e. cor­ri­dors that are cleared for manoeuvring.
6. Adding vir­tual obstacles
7. Defin­ing spe­cial speed ranges, e.g. crit­i­cal areas in which SOTO should drive more slowly

Mod­el­ling process in the Mag­a­zino Fleet Manager

Nav­i­gate to the ‘Maps’ area on your screen and open the saved map. Use the vir­tual robots to draw in dri­ve­ways and their width (fences). These are the areas in which SOTO can drive and manoeuvre.

For pro­duc­tion areas with lim­ited space, you can also define traf­fic rules, e.g. low-speed zones or one-way traffic.

Charg­ing sta­tions and park­ing zones are also defined here.

Mod­el­ling of shelves for an auto­mated mate­r­ial flow

In order for SOTO to opti­mise KLT han­dling, it is par­tic­u­larly impor­tant to posi­tion han­dover sta­tions pre­cisely and spec­ify their prop­er­ties. For exam­ple, define whether the trans­fer sta­tion is a source or sink, how many lev­els and com­part­ments the flow rack is equipped with and which KLT size is to be picked in each case.

In com­bi­na­tion with the bar­code scan­ner inte­grated in the SOTO, this def­i­n­i­tion ensures that the robot deliv­ers or picks the cor­rect KLTs.

Com­mis­sion­ing the SOTO Logis­tics Robot

Before you send SOTO into live oper­a­tion, per­form a final check that all routes are clear, cor­re­spond to real­ity and that all objects are cor­rectly placed. As soon as you are sat­is­fied, save and acti­vate the envi­ron­ment model. SOTO will imme­di­ately use the updated infor­ma­tion for its navigation.

If changes are made to your pro­duc­tion lay­out, you can quickly adapt the envi­ron­ment model at any time with­out fur­ther tech­ni­cal sup­port.

This helps to sim­plify work­flows, reduce down­time and cut costs. In short, this auton­omy and flex­i­bil­ity ensures effi­cient robot oper­a­tion and con­stant, auto­matic KLT han­dling in your production.