Real‐Time Navigation System for Logistics Applications in Industrial Environments

Abstract: Along with the increasing demand for economical- and environmental sustainability within the manufacturing industry, comes new requirements within the topic of waste reduction. This thesis will therefore discuss the possibility to decrease industrial transportation waste, through software-based route optimization tools, within manually operated forklifts. After an initial market analysis, it was found that no public route optimization solution was satisfactory enough to be implemented in a large-scale manufacturing environment, and that instead a custom built solution should be developed. Consequently, this thesis will also describe the development process of said solution, along with the methods and theory used. By evaluating different search algorithms, data structures and software architectures, a functional prototype was developed. Where the main purpose of the prototype is to receive a sequence of delivery orders, and to then utilize it to generate and display routing instructions to operators. By presenting forklift operators with optimized routing instructions, it can decouple the reliance on operator experience from routing decisions, which in turn allows for more efficient movement of products and material, which in turn can decrease transportation waste.