Overview
OPIL is the Open Platform for Innovations in Logistcs. This platform is meant to enable the development of value added services for the logistics sector in small-scale Industry 4.0 contexts such as those of manufacturing SMEs. In fact, it provides an easy deployable suite of applications for rapid development of complete logistics solutions, including components for task scheduling, path planning, automatic factory layout generation and navigation.
OPIL also provides connectivity to equipment for optimal material handling on factory floor. These include (but is not limited to) mobile robots, AGVs, forklifts, workers and sensors as well as IT infrastructure of the factory as various warehouse management and ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems.
OPIL provides a ready integration to a state of the art 3D factory simulator (with mobile robots, AGVs, forklifts, workers and sensors) which allows for a complete development and testing of the logistics solutions virtually before actual implementation. The 3D simulator provides support for the estimation of investment and guides the orchestration of the deployment tasks.
A messaging system at the heart of OPIL, which is based on the FIWARE open architecture, handles interactions among the several components of platform as well as with the external ones.
The open architecture of OPIL supports the usage of open-source frameworks such as ROS (Robot Operating System) for the development of new components, e.g. perception, mobile manipulation, etc.