Integration of proprietary automated guided vehicle (AGV) systems with VDA 5050 for a standardised communications interface

VDA 5050 is a standardized interface for fleet management systems, designed to control a heterogeneous fleet of mobile robots. The standard seeks to increase interoperability between robots from different manufacturers by offering them a common language through which to communicate. By providing a common communication language, the standard incites a considerable reduction of labour needed, more effective collaboration between different mobile robot models and more efficient communication between the fleet manager and the robots. These factors in turn allow mixed fleets to cooperate to complete more complex tasks at lower operational cost. This thesis details the procedures followed in order to integrate VDA 5050 into Elektroautomatik’s proprietary Automatic Guided Vehicle (AGV) system through direct PLC implementation of the standard. The PLC models provided and the company’s requests, in conjunction with the limits set by the standard, the available tools, and time limitations, have defined the scope of this project. Key components of the standard such as order, instantAction, state and factsheet topics were successfully implemented, though order actions were excluded due to project constraints. The developed solution was tested across multiple PLC models under both simulated and real-world conditions, revealing performance limitations tied to the hardware and software properties of the models used. As a result, this thesis successfully demonstrates the possibility of implementing basic VDA 5050 movement control and commands in a PLC, defines the limitations of direct PLC integration of the standard, and identifies suitable PLC models for industrial deployment under the standard.