BlueBotics' Software Enables Precise Navigation for Automated Vehicles

BlueBotics launched SmartPass, a new efficiency-driving innovation within its ANT software suite.

SmartPass is a robust, safe, and highly configurable technology that meets the core efficiency goal of obstacle avoidance. SmartPass suits all types of automated vehicles and industrial sites.

“No matter how clean a site, and how well trained its staff, the paths of mobile robots sometimes become blocked,” says BlueBotics’ CEO, Dr. Nicola Tomatis. “AGVs typically manage this situation by sending an alarm to an operator, while AMRs take any route possible, without limitation. The first can lead to transport delays, the second to traffic deadlocks. SmartPass effectively bridges the gap between the two.”

Key takeaways:

·        SmartPass enables automated vehicles to follow virtual paths most of the time — for efficient, robust, and repeatable operation — while performing pragmatic obstacle avoidance maneuvers when blockages are detected.

• Vehicles using SmartPass take the shortest route around an obstacle — within pre-configured limits — before returning immediately to their virtual path.
• SmartPass-enabled vehicles also move faster than traditional AMRs. Travelling at optimal speeds and with optimal acceleration, they follow virtual paths and respect clear traffic rules most of the time, switching to slower, more reactive speeds only when needed.
• Vehicle actions like moving forks and communicating with equipment take place during SmartPass maneuvers, saving time versus the more common sequential approach.
• SmartPass maneuvers are blocked near pick/drop points to guarantee precision.
• By managing the movements of vehicles within the ANT server’s existing traffic management framework, SmartPass guarantees that vehicles only avoid obstacles when there is no risk of blocking another robot, minimizing the chance of deadlocks.
• Vehicles only move around objects and never around other vehicles, a further cause of deadlocks.
• SmartPass can be configured to suit every user’s site and operational needs. Customers can define, for example, the maximum distance a vehicle is allowed to travel from its virtual path; the areas (and even individual routes) of a site where SmartPass cannot be used; and vehicle-specific parameters such as the exact distance to stop before an obstacle.