Maximize AMR productivity and simplify commissioning with our latest software release

In today’s increasingly competitive manufacturing landscape, improving productivity across every workflow in the facility is essential to staying ahead. While automating material handling processes with autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) offers significant gains in efficiency, safety, and floor space, achieving these results requires more than just deploying robots on the floor. The real value lies in solutions powered by sophisticated, advanced software, capable of enhancing fleet productivity and saving manufacturers commissioning time—even long after deployment.

When your autonomous material handling solution is consistently updated and improved via semi-annual software updates, it enables faster task completion, maximized throughput, and significant savings in commissioning time. This reduces downtime and lowers Mean Time to Repair (MTTR), helping manufacturers maintain continuous operations and achieve a faster return on investment.

Increase AMR average speed with improved navigation capabilities

One of the key advantages AMRs offer over traditional automated guided vehicles (AGVs) is their ability to intelligently navigate around obstacles without human intervention, enabling greater flexibility and throughput. The distance an AMR can deviate from its navigation path to avoid obstacles is just one of its many onboard intelligence features. However, earlier navigation behaviors in some AMRs in the industry were often overly conservative, especially in obstructed, high-traffic environments. When an AMR encountered an obstacle on its path, its narrow deviation distance often forced it to slow down or even stop while recalculating a new path.

With a recent enhancement to OTTO’s autonomy software, most OTTO AMRs can now be configured to adjust how widely they navigate around obstacles—conservative in narrow aisles, or wider and faster in more open spaces—based on your facility’s needs. This added flexibility allows AMRs to move smoothly around obstacles—even large ones—while maintaining momentum, giving you greater control and configurability across your fleet.

In benchmark tests simulating representative facility layouts with static-only obstacles, this improved navigation delivered up to a 1.9x increase in average speed. While results will vary depending on your facility’s layout and traffic conditions, these updates give manufacturers a powerful new way to boost throughput without compromising safety.

Image 1: OTTO maintains continuous momentum around obstacles, leading to a higher average speed, increasing task completion rates, and ultimately improving ROI. (Simulated view on the left; OTTO App view on the right.)

This update builds on a series of ongoing software enhancements designed to maximize AMR performance. In our previous release, customers achieved up to a 2× average speed increase for OTTO 1500 by enabling intelligent LiDAR footprint adjustments when overhanging payloads are unloaded, allowing the robot to move more nimbly through the facility. Customers also benefited from streamlined traffic flow in tight spaces with a yield line feature that reduces stop-and-go behavior at intersections.

Simplify commissioning with selective remapping

In dynamic environments, the ability to quickly adapt to frequent line changes depends on intuitive AMR fleet management software. Lineside operators need to quickly and easily update workflows and maps to keep robots moving and avoid downtime.

To maintain throughput and reduce MTTR, facilities need an AMR solution that simplifies commissioning. Remapping relies in part on the AMR’s perception, but the LiDAR sensors on OTTO AMRs have such a broad range that occasional overspill can cause unwanted map artifacts, requiring additional cleanup. As another addition to OTTO’s autonomy software, manufacturers can now quickly and easily remap a specific region of the facility without extraneous map objects, saving hours of commissioning time and preserving stable zones from unintended changes. For example, if new racks need to be added to the map but temporary items like pallets are nearby, users can simply drag a box around the racks in OTTO App—ensuring only the intended updates are captured while the rest is ignored.

Image 2: By remapping only a specific area of a facility, operators are able to save hours of commissioning time, reducing MTTR.

In a recent release, we introduced an update that saves users up to 50% of the time needed to create and edit facility maps and workflows, further building on our commitment to simplify commissioning. This change gave manufacturers a list of endpoint templates they could add to their facility with a single click, including pickup and drop-off stands, staging carts, pallets, chargers, and parking spots. Additionally, the introduction of the Endpoints Library in our Winter 2024 release allows manufacturers to easily manage and apply changes to multiple endpoints—such as chargers and pallets—ensuring more accurate configurations with less effort.

By partnering with AMR companies that are committed to delivering regular software updates that improve productivity and simplify commissioning, manufacturers can optimize efficiency, reduce downtime, and accelerate their ROI timeline. Learn more about our latest software releases and how OTTO Fleet Manager can optimize your operations.