Automated 3D-motion planning for ramps and stairs in intra-logistics material flow simulations

Commercial software of material flow simulations has the ability to layout the simulated models. Arranged equipment, such as conveyors or machines, includes the need to model and determine motion paths for moving objects like forklifts or automatically guided vehicles, so that the simulation framework is able to navigate all vehicles across those motion paths. After analyzing first scenarios, the user often carries out layout changes in the simulation model, e.g. moving, adding or deleting equipment. However, those changes cause time consuming, additional modeling of the motion paths for the user. Our motion planning algorithm reduces these changes by automatically determining the motion paths for moving objects, depending on an actual model layout without colliding with other objects. The algorithm works on the basis of the virtual scene’s 3D-data used for the simulation model’s visualization. We demonstrate the technique with a multi-floor building example.