Mobile automation
Audi receives VDA Logistics Award
Audi has won the 2017 Logistics Award from the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) with an innovative driverless transport system (AGV) for vehicle shipping. The parking robots called 'Ray' sort up to 2,000 cars per day for loading onto rail wagons.
"Driverless transport systems are a core technology of the smart factory," says Prof. Dr. Hubert Waltl, Board Member for Production and Logistics at Audi, adding: "With their flexible navigation, they also improve efficiency in vehicle shipping." Audi has now received the VDA Logistics Award for precisely this application.
Twelve innovative parking robots called 'Ray' are currently in use at Audi's main plant in Ingolstadt. They independently transport Audi models to the rail loading area after production. One of the robots, which is around six meters long and three meters wide, uses laser sensors to detect the position and dimensions of a car and adjusts itself accordingly. It then carefully lifts the car up to ten centimeters. A central autonomous guidance system assigns the robot a space where it can park the car as quickly as possible. As soon as a sufficient number of vehicles have been collected for the same shipping destination, a robot prepares them for loading onto the rail wagons.
In this way, the automated guided vehicles complete up to 8,000 movements per day, covering a distance of around 500 kilometers. They even change their batteries independently: When the charge status is low, the robot docks onto the fully automated changing station in good time and a specialized robot replaces the battery within a few minutes. The system works reliably around the clock - on an open parking deck and at outside temperatures as low as minus 20 degrees. In addition to efficiency, it also improves ergonomics for the employees: they now have significantly shorter walking distances and are less exposed to extreme weather conditions.
The Ray automated guided vehicle system was developed in collaboration with Serva Transport Systems from Grabenstätt on Lake Chiemsee.
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