Kommunikationskonzept für selbststeuernde Fahrzeugkollektive in der Intralogistik

Globalized procurement markets, increasing product customization and variety, and shorter innovation cycles increase the complexity and dynamics in logistics systems. This is particularly true at the node in distribution networks, in which goods are combined, compiled order-specifically and redistributed. A growing number of products, small batch sizes and highly variable orders, which are therefore difficult to predict, reinforce the logistics trade-off between maximum delivery and minimal inventory. Against this background, a rapid adaptivity and thus a high degree of changeability in the design of material flow systems becomes more and more important. Decentralized, flexible and adaptive solutions for the management of material and information flows as the "Internet of Things in Intralogistics" already point in this direction. At the same time, the material flow is still based on heterogeneous, stationary continuous conveyor systems. To not only use the advantages of decentralization regarding flexibility, robustness and reusability in the field of software, the present thesis investigates the potential of a systematic substitution of rigid, inflexible conveyor technique by a large number of uniform, mobile transport robots, which can carry out logistic tasks autonomously. The present thesis focuses a safe and efficient exchange of required information between the participating units, which is the basic requirement for the operation of a material flow system based on autonomous, mobile and geographically distributed entities. Both technical and logical aspects of a communication concept for autonomously controlled vehicular collectives in intralogistics are considered.