Software-In-The-Loop Test Bench For The Evaluation Of The Coordinative Fleet Control Approach In Intralogistics

Abstract

A system coordinator for the intelligent forwarding of transport orders enables the combination of several fleets of intralogistic transport vehicles such as robots in one material flow system without them having to exchange information with each other. Evaluating the operation of this coordinator requires a simulation environment that represents all adjacent systems, creating a Software-in-the-Loop (SiL) environment. This includes upstream systems, e.g. ERP or ME systems, several fleet controllers as well as a material flow system with all vehicles including their interactions and possible failures. In this article, the conceptual design of such an SiL system is presented. Additionally, a proof-of-concept demonstrates the fundamental functionality. Python is used for the system coordinator and the analysis, openTCS for the fleet controllers and Siemens Plant Simulation for the material flow simulation. The communication in between uses HTTP and raw TCP packets, respectively.