Modular, service-oriented design and architecture of smart vehicles for short distance person and freight transport

Smart vehicles are expected to have a high potential for future transportation applications. Possible areas are personnel transport in large building like hospitals or airports and flexible freight transport which can be found in large production sites. Depending on the individual task to be performed, different control and navigation algorithms, man-machine interfaces and sensor hardware and software is required. Although many powerful experimental prototypes have been developed in the field of autonomous mobile robotics in the last decade, most have been designed for a specific task and therefore lack the required flexibility to be adapted to different environments and applications. The following essay presents a modular, service oriented concept for the design of smart vehicles, which is based on standard hardware and software components to allow a simple adaptation to different applications.