Eyes and brain AGV combined in one platform

The advance of AGVs is unstoppable. Staff shortages are forcing food companies to automate their logistics processes as well. But whoever says AGV also says vision technology. After all, cameras and scanners must ensure that the AGV moves across the floor without collisions. Not the easiest of programming tasks. This is why ifm electronic is now launching the O3R Perception Platform. A revolution in digital image processing that ensures faster response and programming times.

The A in AGV stands for autonomous. The starting point in such applications is therefore to have the AGV perform its tasks with as little human interaction as possible. "AGVs must therefore be able to identify obstacles in their path in time to avoid collisions," says ifm product specialist Kenneth Van de Perre. "This is done by combining data from different scanners and sensors, so that the AGV actually gets a 360° view of its surroundings. A task that requires the necessary computing power to handle all that in quasi real-time. The faster the AGV can react, the safer and more flexible it can do its job."

Making AGVs more responsive

With the O3R Perception Platform ifm electronic now offers a welcome new solution for this market. Van de Perre: "The starting point for the development was to create a separate unit that can take care of all image processing in and around the AGV. A turnkey solution that then sends only those signals to the control of the AGV that it needs to maneuver around obstacles or come to a safe stop when people approach." This simultaneously creates new opportunities to add artificial intelligence and allow the AGV to learn. After all, there is plenty of computing power available. The O3R Perception platform consists, on the one hand, of a compact camera head. "In it, nevertheless, several technologies are combined: a 3D time of flight camera, a 2D RGB camera and an infrared light source," Van de Perre adds. On the other hand, there is the VPU (virtual processing unit), which processes all image data in real time. Up to six camera heads fit on it, or the AGV's existing sensors can also be connected. The VPU also contains two Ethernet and two USB ports and an integrated inertial measurement.

Programming faster AGVs

The AGV can thus already anticipate faster with this smart hardware, for greater safety and flexibility on the road. To now also make it easier for the developer of such applications, ifm electronic is launching, together with the O3R Perception Platform a developer portal. "Before we started working on the development of O3R, we put our ear to the ground with developers of vision applications for mobile robotics. They mainly bumped into the complexity of integrating visual data into the movements of the AGV and providing the necessary feedback back. Through the portal, we therefore provide open source applications and templates that make it easier to program such applications. A great example is "code modulation. Developers can use this to create a robust point cloud without having to sacrifice frame rate (processing time). After all, there is no longer any need to filter out interference. An additional advantage is that they can process the data in the engineering framework they are familiar with. Think C++, Python, Docker, ROS ... And that saves a lot of time," Van de Perre concludes.