Open interfaces for connecting automated guided vehicles to a fleet management system

The recent digitalization of manufacturing companies, driven by "Industry 4.0" guidelines, introduces a series of challenges and opportunities both for enterprise and research environments. In this perspective, a debated subject is the interfacing of hardware, because logistic challenges and production assets are moving towards the adoption of Internet-of-Things-based Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), whose flexibility allows to rethink control architectures that are traditionally based on ISA 95 and IEC 62264 formalized hierarchies. More versatile architectures also pave the way to the so-called horizontal integration. This work focuses on intra-logistics, aiming at defining a simple architecture enabling CPS assets' monitoring and control. This allows the development of an open platform that enables an easy and simultaneous connection of multi-vendor hardware, overcoming the current legacy systems' gap of requiring a significant effort to do so. The architecture is then substantiated by the development of a component interfacing Automated Guided Vehicles (AGV) and managing their navigation thanks to a Fleet Management System (FMS), which is back fed by the same AGVs.