Warehouse automation using Combilift

While the existing digital infrastructure accurately tracks the aluminium coils to specific cells, the forklift operator must manually enter the information from the application into the forklift control system. This manual step poses a significant challenge to the efficiency of warehouse and hinders the implementation of an autonomous loading/unloading system.

We created an intermediary communication layer that forms a bridge between the current Windows application and the forklift system to resolve the issue. This layer translates cell information into forklift parameters using a C# library employing the CANOpen stack and a custom CAN protocol. The hardware abstraction layer (HAL) and library APIs have been carefully defined, to provide adequate isolation for external applications interfacing with the forklift hardware.

The improvements have greatly enhanced the operational efficiency of our client's system by removing the need for manual entries by operators. The application is now being expanded to achieve the goal of autonomous navigation for forklifts, including the loading and unloading Aluminium coils.