47 As Kumar saw it, this was not just a matter of UGV pricings but of throughput – howmuch freight and material could be moved in and out of storage per hour, safely and correctly, with every movement and asset detected, tracked and recorded through the fleet management and warehouse management systems (WMSs). Addverb’s r&d therefore began with the initial layers a warehouse depends upon: technologies for storing, sorting, picking and moving goods. After that it started developing automation solutions (particularly rail-travelling robots and AGVs with grid-based navigation) before moving onto the autonomous Dynamo series. Development history “TheDynamo 200was the first in the series to be created, although at the timewewere alsoworking onASRS [automated storage and retrieval system] robots for handling pallets – essentially an automated pallet shuttle that ran on rails,” explains Abhishek Jain, head of products at Addverb. “The Dynamo 1T was actually conceived during the pallet shuttle’s development. The thought process was that if we were going to start moving up to 1000 kg via these pallet shuttles, which were fixed conveyor solutions, it made sense to build on that with an autonomous robot that could perform more dynamic movements of those quantities, either between different shuttles or key workstations.” Of the 1T’s development, Pattnayak recalls that the increase in weight-handling requirements was so great between it and the other Dynamo UGVs that much of the 1T’s development had to be froma blank sheet. ‘Copying and pasting’ the same engineering principles from the smaller robots onto the bigger one was unfeasible. “If you consider what an AMR is, and take away the mechanical differences between the various types, what remains is the perception and sensor fusion stack at the core of their intelligence,” Pattnayak says. “That’s what stays roughly the same between the Dynamo models, and even theoretically between the Dynamo and a Roomba, albeit maybe with differences in sensing and localisation architecture – and of course a lot more added industrial-grade safety. “The process of accounting for the differences that wewould need between versions of the Dynamowas carried out by our ‘solutioning’ researchers, whowould go out to thewarehouse floors of clients and understand how the autonomous systems would interface between the human workers and the automated systems. “We couldn’t be successful by behaving like so many start-ups do in California, where they develop an AMR and only afterwards unveil it and look into how the market likes it. I knew a few such companies back in my Google, Nvidia and Intel days, so we knew we had to inform our design and engineering by working through customer requirements.” Having investigated anddefined the roles, carrying capacities, speeds, throughput rates and sense& avoid capabilities itsUGVs would need across logistics operations, Addverb’s CAD, perception, embedded computers, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering andmanufacturing departmentswere taskedwith producing a UGV capable of handling pallets of 1000 kg. Modular body The 1T is a battery-electric systemwith differential steering across its two drive wheels and four caster wheels. Around the exterior of its body can be seen Lidars as well as 3D cameras for navigation and safety, along with emergency stop buttons for added precaution. “There are also adjustable attachment points on top and around the exterior, so that the robot can have transfer mechanisms like an actuator-lifter or platform lifter installed on top of it,” Jain says. That means it can move or lift pallets as well as other objects like trolleys from itself to shelves or to our automated shuttle robots. “You can also put a winch on it to tug a trolley or a chain of trolleys behind it, and its cameras can help with recognising the correct trolley to be tugged, which helps with inventory management beyond moving and sorting goods.” Addverb Dynamo 1T | Digest Uncrewed Systems Technology | June/July 2023 Addverb produced a range of automated robots and other systems before developing the Dynamo series
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