Intralogistics in Learning Factories

The “Lernfabrik Fallenbrunnen” is a privately funded Learning Factory, located in Friedrichshafen, Germany. The main research areas are collaborative robotics, machine vision, extended reality, and connectivity in production. Part of the learning factory is the manufacturing process of a demonstrator product, distributed to various places, including manual workstations with digital guidance, stationary and mobile robots, and an automated rack storage. This paper will focus on the intralogistics between the various places, using autonomous mobile robots (AMR) to transport pre-manufactured and finished products between working stations automatically, as well as stationary robots to load and unload components from the AMR’s. The base components for the manufacturing process are delivered from outside the building to the first workstation, using an outdoor capable Husky AMR. The first workstation is an AR-guided manual workplace, where the worker picks these components directly from the Husky AMR. Further components are stored in boxes and are mounted by the worker. The pre-manufactured product is subsequently put on an ezWheel AMR. Using a camera, the load of the ezWheel is constantly checked for quantity and correctness, and when fulfilled, the ezWheel is automatically sent to the next station. There the pre-manufactured products will be picked from the ezWheel automatically on a conveyor belt system, using a stationary robot from KUKA. Further workstations are part of this conveyor belt system, and when the product is circulated once, it’s finished and lifted from the KUKA robot to an automated high rack storage.