100 onsite technician selects Mapping Mode on the SOTO display, allowing them to manually drive the robot around their production or warehouse area while the map forms on the robot’s display. The laser scanner at the top, as well as additional scanners at the bottom, all record the environment for a highly precise and detailed map.” The scanners at the bottom record everything up to a 12 cm height off the ground (with their horizontal angle sometimes capturing the exact position of handover stations for SLCs), while the upper scanner records everything up to a 220 cm height. This information is uploaded via wi-fi to Magazino’s proprietary Fleet Manager software, where it is stored. Customers can also access the map to enrich it with their own parameters for refining their logistics processes. “That could, for example, include specifying the number of layers in a shelf, or the heights of compartments in a shelf, or specifying whether something is a stationary shelf or a conveyor,” Eldevik says. “You can also add particular waypoints that you want the robots to take; for instance, avoiding areas where human foot traffic is highest or driving around certain objects on their left- or righthand side, and other safety-related actions, such as specifying zones where its speed should reduce to a minimum or where it simply shouldn’t go at all. “When in doubt, the robot will orient itself towards the centre of the driving graph in any corridor it is allowed to follow, per our programming, to maintain predictable driving behaviour. Naturally, they can specify parking spaces for when they’re waiting for tasks or for traffic to clear up, and charging locations.” Trusted colleague Numerous safety certifications have been complied with and achieved in SOTO’s development, and Magazino has implemented some unique functional safety features into its operation. For one, the openings at the gripper’s front, left and rear are equipped with light curtains (based on NIR sensors), such that if anyone reaches through them, both the gripper and the drivebase, and every one of SOTO’s mechanisms ceases operation. The incident is logged internally as a ‘safety event’, and a worker must acknowledge it on one of SOTO’s touchscreens (positioned at front and rear at roughly face height) before it can continue working. “In addition to the light curtains, the laser scanners around the base of the robot create a 360° safety field around it, which determine how fast SOTO can move, while front and rear 3D cameras atop the robot use machine vision to identify human beings and other obstacles in its surroundings,” Eldevik explains. “Using point-cloud technology to granularly analyse movement and object distances, SOTO can drive around obstacles within the predefined parameters of where it is allowed to navigate in the production environment. If the space is too constrained it will slow down and wait for the traffic to clear.” If there are no people around SOTO, it can drive at its full, 1.5 m/s speed, but as an irregular object or a person gets closer it will reduce its speed and fully stop if it gets too close. As indicated, a minimum travelling width of 1650 mm is needed for SOTO to be permitted to move safely by its own autonomy system; any less than that and it holds position. When close to the minimum movement space, the robot will go at only 0.3 m/s – at least 2510 mm of space is needed for maximum speed. Eldevik notes that choosing and configuring the touchscreens was safetycritical, both for interacting with the robot (when the safety system is triggered) and for giving clear graphical indications of the robot’s status to those nearby. “At any given time, personnel can look at either screen and see what tasks the SOTO is presently completing, and which tasks are scheduled for the near future, and if there’s any issue, a tutorial alert flashes on the screen, telling people exactly what they need to do in a pictorial format to rectify the error,” he says. “That ensures trained customer staff can take appropriate action and there’s no interruption to process flows in the production environment. We really wanted to make sure no manufacturer or warehouse would need to wait for a Magazino technician to come along and operate the robot. We and our customers needed their trained personnel to rectify any errors and ensure SOTO can keep operating efficiently.” December/January 2025 | Uncrewed Systems Technology By recording a 3D map of its working environment, SOTO can integrate into existing production lines without significant modifications to customers’ infrastructure
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