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Self-driving vehicles hit the factory floor

Otto Motors, a start-up division of Clearpath Robotics, introduced an intelligent material transport vehicle that incorporates self-learning technology to navigate autonomously around a facility.

Clear path Robotics is focused on intelligent self-driving vehicles (SDVs) for material transport in factory and distribution facilities.
Clear path Robotics is focused on intelligent self-driving vehicles (SDVs) for material transport in factory and distribution facilities.

When industry observers reference “smart manufacturing,” Industry 4.0 or the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), it is often related to connecting plant floor equipment and analyzing Big Data in an effort to increase quality and efficiency on the production line or in the supply chain. But sometimes it is the most simplistic applications that make the biggest difference.

Enter Otto Motors, a start-up division of Clearpath Robotics, which is focused exclusively on intelligent self-driving vehicles (SDVs) for material transport in factory and distribution facilities. The company and its products, including the Otto 100 for light-load material transport and the Otto 1500 for heavy-load transport, were unveiled at the International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS) in Chicago.

The company launched in April of this year to focus on bringing modular SDVs that use onboard sensors to navigate the facility. This means, unlike traditional automated guided vehicles (AGV), Otto does not require magnetic tape, beacons or additional infrastructure to make its way around a facility.

The flexible navigation system is based on the Clearpath operating system (OS) that includes application programming interfaces (APIs) to enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems connected to a Dispatch App to create work instructions and automate workflow.

Much like collaborative robots, the Otto SDVs can work alongside humans. Self-learning technology and sensors enable it to map the surroundings using infrastructure-free navigation, obstacle avoidance and dynamic path-planning, company officials said during a press conference at IMTS.

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