Development of Mobile Smart Material-Handling System

The global surge for achieving economics in the field of manufacturing has led to the evolution of the industrial manufacturing system to industry 4.0. Autonomous mobile robots are integral to the smart manufacturing and logistics system. In this work, a smart material handling system is designed and developed, which can work autonomously and can be integrated with another subsystem of the manufacturing system. An algorithm is developed on the ROS platform for performing loading, transportation, and unloading operations while navigating the path autonomously. Simulation is done using Gazebo and RViz application software. A CAD of a scissor lift for loading/unloading operations is designed using Autodesk Fusion360 and fabricated through FDM 3D printing. For validation, a working model of the smart material handling system is developed by mounting the scissors lift on a commercially available mobile robot Turtlebot3 Waffle Pi and interfacing the scissors lift actuators with the mobile robot controller. The simulation and experimental results for various layouts of the warehouse validate the developed system.