What if goods in a factory or warehouse could glide across the hall floor as if by themselves – without any forklift trucks or conveyor belts? The ITA – Institute of Transport and Automation Technology at Leibniz University Hannover is working on this in the ‘ModHalbo’ research project.
In current intralogistics, industrial trucks, such as forklift trucks, are predominantly used to transport goods within warehouses and for incoming and outgoing goods. As these have to be operated manually, the time required for these processes depends, among other things, on the number of transport vehicles that can be used and their operating personnel.
New type of hall floor to enable omnidirectional transport
In order to speed up these processes and counteract the shortage of skilled labour, the ITA is researching a new type of intralogistics base element: a modular hall floor for omnidirectional transport (see Figure 1).
Rotating drive modules with drive rollers are embedded in the floor. These can move load carriers – Euro pallets, for example – in any direction. The research project is primarily focussing on the loading and unloading areas of warehouses (see Figure 2), but the principle could also be extended to the entire warehouse operation.
SME-compatible alternative to large, automated warehouses
The research project aims to support the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in particular. Large companies with large warehouses are becoming increasingly automated. Amazon is considered a prime example of technological progress in intralogistics. The group’s distribution centres are at the forefront of automated warehouses.
For SMEs, however, the realisation of such automated warehouses using autonomous robot systems is rarely a valid option due to the high acquisition and maintenance costs. The research project therefore aims to find a low-cost alternative that can significantly increase the turnover of SMEs.
The modular warehouse floor is not intended to replace human labour, but rather to support it. The modular warehouse floor should be integrated into existing warehouse concepts and be able to transport load carriers through the warehouse to their designated stations alongside human employees.
Key requirements: High load capacity and safe accident prevention
In order to realise this, there are two main requirements for the warehouse floor: Firstly, the control algorithms must be able to absolutely avoid collisions between load carriers and with people, transport equipment and machines – and secondly, the mechanics of the warehouse floor must also be able to withstand the weights of loaded industrial trucks going about their normal business.
To avoid collisions, a path planning algorithm is implemented that can react to dynamic obstacles that are recognised by cameras. The drive modules are designed to be omnidirectional: This allows objects to be transported much more flexibly and efficiently than would be possible with purely orthogonal movement. To increase safety, a higher-level monitoring system is also programmed, which brings the load carrier to a halt if a standardised minimum distance is exceeded.
To ensure normal operation in a warehouse environment, it must be possible to drive over the area with loaded industrial trucks weighing up to 9 tonnes. The aim is to distribute the weight over as many modules as possible. The challenge here is to develop an inexpensive but robust construction that can bear the weight and thus protect the electric drives.
Goal: Increasing the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises
The successful development of such a modular warehouse floor should enable SMEs to better compete in the economy – even against large companies with fully automated warehouses – and thus remain competitive. The research project is expected to be completed in early 2027.
