Wireless charging for all environments

In the fast-paced world of mass manufacturing, delays compromise productivity. Eradicating their causes – whether through malfunction or maintenance – is key to ensuring uptime, efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Automatic Guided Vehicles (AGVs) play an essential role in today´s modern manufacturing environment. Whether they are moving partially completed goods through different stages of production, transporting materials or components from storage to production lines or between workstations, their role underpins the efficient flow of goods throughout the manufacturing process. Given AGV’s role in the workflow, any downtime they experience can have serious consequences.

Carrybots takes the weight off conveyors 

One AGV manufacturer that has been helping companies easily and cost-efficiently achieve transport automation, is Carrybots GmbH. Founded in 2021, its popular mobile robots for in-house logistics — including HERBIE – stand out for their high levels of modularity, flexibility and the modern control software incorporated into its products. It is recognised that the consolidation of load carriers – especially when the return of empty containers is required – poses significant challenges for manufacturers of conveyor technology. This leads to high costs and inflexible space utilisation for customers. 

HERBIE addresses this challenge by automating this process without compromising the benefits of conventional conveyor technology.

Recently, Carrybots responded to a request from a large tea manufacturer that had a requirement for a HERBIE with a faster, more convenient method for charging. Carry bots weighed up the pros and cons of battery swapping versus automatic charging, and concluded that battery swapping takes more time, while in process charging could be realised through a wireless solution. The latter option brings many advantages in a production or in-house logistics environment, ranging from improved safety, faster charging times and easier implementation. It also negates the need for additional storage space to house batteries while they are charging.

With the preferred charging method established, the tea manufacturer then identified certain requirements that the wireless charging solution had to fulfill. It had to offer minimal to no maintenance and be high quality. Due to the nature of the manufacturing environment, it also had to be suitable for harsh environments (especially dusty ones) and have no open contacts. It needed to offer CAN communication, be compact on the AGV while also being easy to integrate into the facilities. With those requirements established, Carrybots´ next step was to identify the manufacturer best able to meet the customers´ wireless charging needs.

Delta´s MOOVair wireless charging systems are no maintenance, high-efficiency product suitable for charging batteries in AGV/AMRs and all kinds of industrial electric vehicles. 

Furthermore, MOOVair guarantees reliability in dusty environments. The other charging alternatives that Carrybot considered used IR-communication – which, when covered by dust, could cause communication issues – and were ruled out on safety and reliability grounds.