Swarm Intelligence (SI) and bio-inspired computing have attracted great interest in almost every area of science and engineering, including robotics, over the last two decades.
Being an innovative manufacturer of autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), AGILOX directs most of its effort into developing one of the most unique robotic material handling features on the market - completely decentralised autonomy. AGILOX Intelligent Guided Vehicles (IGVs) are completely independent, self-controlled, and intelligently designed to handle failover, recovery, and deadlock prevention perfectly.
Providing real-time solutions
Their SI system can provide real-time solutions to impossibly complex optimisation problems in the most efficient way possible, often in ways that a human designer could never anticipate. The swarm can also handle unexpected changes in dynamic environments without any human intervention.
AGILOX vehicles automatically exchange information about the environment and the current work order situation with each other via WiFi several times per second. Based on virtual transport costs, which each participant constantly recalculates for all pending orders, it is automatically decided which vehicle fulfils an order and which path that vehicle can take to fulfil this order in the shortest amount of time. All of this is possible with almost no overhead cost to the end-customer.
Expensive server systems
The nature of the Swarm Intelligence also provides another massive advantage in terms of setup cost
There are no expensive server systems, no wires added under the floor, no reflector or beacon installations - no hardware of any kind, other than your regular 2.4 or 5 GHz WiFi network and the charger. There is no software to install or maintain, no version numbers to keep up with, and no licenses with ongoing subscription fees.
The nature of the Swarm Intelligence also provides another massive advantage in terms of setup cost. Once the first AGILOX unit learns its environment and workflow details, the system becomes immediately infinitely scalable. Adding additional vehicles to the swarm to increase throughput is as simple as turning on the power and assigning an IP address.
Unrivalled collective intelligence
Within minutes, the new vehicle will automatically download all of its configuration information from the swarm and begin working, no additional commissioning or programming required. AGILOX represents a total departure from the traditional approach to material handling processes.
They apply the principles of the decentralised IGV system to their entire business model from top to bottom as well, by providing the customers with the training and tools to perform their own maintenance and expand or modify the system as they see fit. With open interfaces, infinite flexibility, and unrivalled collective intelligence, the possibilities for the AGILOX implementation are limited only by one’s imagination. Welcome to the future of logistics automation.
