Perhaps the biggest story in the world of warehouse automation over the past five years has been the rise of the robot—specifically, the autonomous mobile robot, or AMR. Thanks to the robots’ remarkable ability to navigate safely around chaotic distribution centers, these diminutive electric vehicles have had an outsized impact on DC operations. Working alone or in fleets, they can speed up processes like picking and fulfillment, easing the pressure on companies struggling to keep up with e-commerce orders amid a shortage of workers.
But at its core, an AMR is just an intelligent vehicle. Most models operate much like a city bus, weaving their way through traffic as they travel between stops on their route, but lacking the tools needed to autonomously pick up or drop off passengers—or in this case, material—at each stop.
In the early days of AMRs, systems integrators filled that gap by designing specialized hardware to bolt onto the robots for each individual client. Those gadgets did the trick, but they also gained a reputation for being expensive and unreliable, according to Mayuran Ponnampalam, sales manager at Nord Modules, a Danish company that makes AMR “top modules,” a catch-all term for attachments or accessories that expand the robots’ functionality.
“Historically, systems integrators built one-off, customized solutions, which were actually just prototypes. They [were of] low quality, so they gained a bad name in the market; after a year or half a year, it would break down,” Ponnampalam says.
To meet the market’s need for better attachments, several former executives from the AMR developer Mobile Industrial Robots (MiR) founded Nord Modules in 2017. Today, the company makes four types of products: lift modules (lifting mechanisms that resemble the roof racks on cars), conveyor modules (roller tops that allow a pallet to slide onto an AMR), station modules (shelves that hold a package off the ground so it can be picked up by the lift module), and accessories (like wheeled racks that can be pushed around by AMRs). In the company’s own words, “An AMR moves from A to B, but we do what happens when it’s actually at A or B.”
Nord Modules isn’t alone. A number of attachment makers have jumped into the market in recent years. These providers argue that they can leverage their large scale to offer AMR accessories that are better designed, more thoroughly tested, and lower priced than one-off solutions. We should note here that while some AMR suppliers do make top modules for their own equipment, many prefer to leave that to third parties so they can focus their R&D efforts on enhancements to the mobile robot itself.
CUSTOM-TAILORED SUITS
Like many of those AMR accessory makers, Nord Modules builds devices for specific robot models—in this case, MiR, Omron, and Otto robots—and sells its accessories through integrators or distributors. Because of that tight relationship, attachment makers are able to build top modules that are fitted so precisely to each AMR that most end-users have no idea that they’re made by separate companies.
“You wouldn’t necessarily know the provider of a cart is different from the provider of the AMR, because it’s seamless in form, fit, and function,” says Dan Gannaway, director of marketing at another top module maker, Jtec Industries.
East Peoria, Illinois-based Jtec started out making cart systems that were pulled by human-driven tuggers, typically in heavy manufacturing applications. But in recent years, the company started noticing that clients were using automated guided vehicles (AGVs)—and eventually, AMRs—to move the carts. “We saw a gap in the market; these new machines really don’t move materials themselves. So now we want to own everything from the tugger back,” Gannaway says. The company makes several devices that fit onto Otto-brand AMRs, such as powered roller tops that can move boxes to the front or the side, and scissor lifts that can pick up a custom-built cart.
TOP MODULES GET SMART
In order to navigate safely, AMRs come outfitted with many of the same sensors that are found on autonomous cars. But as top modules take on an expanded role in warehouse operations—like exchanging loads with other pieces of moving equipment—they increasingly need intelligence of their own, says Carsten Sørensen, head of sales at Roeq, a Danish maker of mobile robotic equipment (MRE) for MiR, Omron, and Continental AMRs.
“It’s one thing to look at an AMR, but you also need to look at the MRE,” Sørensen says. “You take a mobile robot that can move around, and that’s neat. But in order to take on goods, pick them up, and deliver them, you need the MRE to make this fancy AMR useful.”
The Danish company makes three types of equipment: “move it” cart solutions, “roll it” conveyors, and “lift it” lifters. In each case, the top module needs to communicate with other warehouse equipment around it—for example, exchanging data with a static conveyor to identify the right position and direction to engage its top roller before discharging a load.
“The AMR is bringing our equipment from point A to point B. That’s where our top module takes over and interacts with the environment,” Sørensen says. “That answers the question: How do I get my goods moved around with just a ‘naked robot’?”
