Your Solution for Reliability, Mobility, High Throughput, Flexibility, Fast Changeovers, Low Costs, Innovative Processes

Guided AS/RS systems provide power and data to retrieval vehicles over live rails.

Retrieval vehicles undergoing repairs must be deactivated to ensure worker safety, which also prevents other vehicles from operating in the same corridor. A single repair job therefore greatly impacts an entire system's performance level.

Thanks to EchoRing, rails are no longer live and are instead used only for guidance and balance - vehicles are battery-powered and controlled wirelessly. Workers can now repair a single unit without shutting down an entire corridor, thus minimizing downtime for the entire system.

Transport racks are an important asset for in-process storage on production lines - particularly in automotive setups where bespoke customization and "just-in-time" delivery require efficient and accessible storage solutions. Drag chains and visible light communications (VLC) are currently employed to coordinate transport racks and assembly line robots.

Drag chains are often vulnerable to wear and tear due to being in constant motion, while VLCs are prone to disruption in dusty and motion-filled shop floors. These common sources of system failure result in expensive downtimes.

EchoRing's decentralized "echo station" protocol ensures both cable-like performance and wireless flexibility with none of the wear and tear or signal disruption of current solutions. System availability is maximized while maintenance cycles are minimized.

Fast and efficient autonomous transport systems are increasingly employed in intralogistics setups, connected and synchronized over wireless networks.

Adoption of autonomous transports is somewhat hampered by the limits of current wireless M2M solutions. Reliability and synchronization must meet the same safety standards as traditional wired or manual setups before full adoption can occur.

EchoRing's industrial network solution combines prioritized data transfer with a patented "echo station" protocol, ensuring cable-like performance with the wireless flexibility. With smart network planning, transports can now operate reliably and in real-time over an entire shop floor.

Slotted waveguides transmitting control and safety data are commonly employed in production transport setups.

Critical components within slotted waveguides are highly vulnerable to wear and tear due to being in constant motion. Regular maintenance downtime is often required, which presents a key obstacle for operators wanting to adopt 24/7 "lights out" manufacturing.

EchoRing replaces fragile wires and components within slotted waveguides with URLLC wireless links, greatly increasing system uptime and durability.

Conductor rails are a reliable mainstay of automated manufacturing, ensuring uninterrupted power and data transmission to assembly line transport vehicles.

Conductor rails are often very inflexible as well as expensive and time-consuming to modify. These costs are especially apparent in assembly lines that must undergo frequent changeovers to meet individualized order requirements.

Conductor rails are a thing of the past thanks to EchoRing! Prioritized data transfer combined with a patented "echo station" protocol ensures unbroken real-time wireless connectivity over the entire shop floor. Untethered production lines composed of synchronized battery-powered mobile units can now reconfigure themselves on the fly, assembling wider product ranges in shorter production cycles with fewer resources.

Industrial elevator systems play a crucial role in multi-storey factory intralogistics. Elevators must be closely coordinated at all times with autonomous transport paths to ensure top efficiency.

Elevators are a notorious transport bottleneck that can stall access to entire warehouse floors with a single mis-timed transit path. Since they still rely on cables to ensure safety and reliability, this often results in expensive slowdowns.

Thanks to EchoRing's seamless roaming, dense networks of distributed sensors and wireless data links can tightly synchronize elevator control systems with autonomous vehicle fleets. Combined with machine learning, data gathering and traffic prioritization, these networks can help operators develop and optimize highly efficient intralogistics plans.

Heavy transport is currently conducted with a range of specialized machinery, each of which require separate operator's permits and safety procedures.

Heavy machine transport is slow, expensive and inflexible, requiring the purchase and installation of heavy machinery that is only useful for a single task, along with hiring/training specialized personnel. Automation in this field has also begun to plateau, due to inherent hardware and process limitations.

EchoRing's ad-hoc, infrastructure-free network architecture enables platoons of automated transport vehicles (AGVs) to synchronize and operate together in real time with rock-solid reliability. This solution is highly flexible and cost-efficient, as these transports can be employed for other tasks as well.

Automated guided vehicles must significantly reduce transit speed to avoid collisions at transport intersections and other bottlenecks.

Slowdowns at transport bottlenecks represent wasted production throughput potential. Additional vehicles are often required to cover the shortfall.

EchoRing enables realtime wireless M2M communications even in crowded and ever-changing propagation environments. Near-instant network access and direct links between participants optimize intralogistics transport to the fullest, maximizing cost-efficiency.

Production line turntables are a useful feature of modern production lines, allowing multiple workpieces to be processed in quick succession from a single rotating rack.

Turntables require regular and costly maintenance cycles due to constant wear and tear on their fragile components, particularly slip rings employed for power and data transmission.

EchoRing replaces many internal points of failure with friction-free wireless links, greatly extending maintenance cycles and increasing throughput efficiency. The solution's fast reconnect feature also facilitates component changes during repairs.

Sensors and tools on assembly robots are typically controlled via insulated cables affixed to the robots' chassis. These tools are frequently modified or exchanged with each new production job.

Even with shielding, these cables are subject to wear and tear and are often prone to failure from constant motion in harsh industrial environments. Frequent hardware-related downtimes present a key obstacle for 24/7 "lights out" manufacturing.

EchoRing provides cable-like speed and reliability to replace cables in critical robot controls. Fewer physical points of failure result fewer maintenance cycles and higher production throughput. EchoRing can also be employed as a backup redundancy measure for non-replaceable cables, thanks to its near-instant client network access.

Large workpieces (such as car chassis) in production lines are often transited between workstations by rail-guided shuttles suspended above the shop floor. Complex cable layouts ensure real-time power and data connectivity.

Cables, despite their moment-to-moment speed and reliability, are constantly subject to wear and tear and are frequently prone to failure, resulting in expensive downtimes for diagnosis and repairs.

EchoRing revolutionizes M2M communications, combining cable-like speed, reliability and security with the flexibility of wireless networks. Fewer physical points of failure result in durable, mobile setups with far fewer maintenance cycles.

Legacy industrial setups must incorporate emerging machine concepts and processes to compete with new "smart" manufacturing plants. For this to happen, seamless integration of new hardware via modular retrofits is key.

Upgrading fixed production lines is often lengthy, expensive and complex due to extensive cable networks and fixed production elements. The entire process must often be redesigned, retooled and undergo extensive performance testing, incurring huge costs for the operator.

Production line upgrades are now far easier with modular hardware retrofits. Segments of a production line can easily be swapped in and out as necessary, thanks to wireless M2M solutions such as EchoRing replacing complex cable layouts.

Hydraulic lifts are essential in production facilities that assemble larger machines and products. They are typically static, wired apparatus specifically designed for lifting and supporting heavy materials.

Lifts suffer from a lack of mobility and flexibility due to their extensive cable connections, requiring lengthy setup and operations procedures to ensure coordination and abide by safety standards.

EchoRing's patented "echo station" protocol ensures unbroken real-time wireless connectivity between critical industrial controls, upholding safety standards while greatly increasing flexibility. Fewer cables combined with power-independent battery solutions enable faster setup processes with fewer personnel.

In order meet demand, modern final assembly lines must incorporate adjustable workstations that can accommodate a wide range of product types and sizes.

Adjustable assembly line architectures still have plenty of room for improvement in both flexibility and ease of use. A key avenue in this regard is mobile wireless battery-driven systems, however worker safety standards must be ensured before wide adoption can take place.

EchoRing's patented "echo station" system ensures unbroken realtime connection for critical controls, ensuring industry safety standards while greatly increasing flexibility. Operators are now empowered to design highly flexible and easy adjustable assembly line concepts.

Modern production lines are typically independent closed systems, designed to both ensure worker safety and to prevent production errors from cascading throughout the rest of the shop floor.

Self-contained production lines are very inflexible, expensive and require a large shop floor footprint to accommodate required safety measures, such as dividers. Emerging markets for increasingly bespoke products require frequent system changeovers to meet demand, which imposes a high overhead on operators.

EchoRing's wireless network solution supports collaborative production setups, intersecting multiple production lines and tightly coordinating a diverse range of multi-purpose production assets such as assembly robots, autonomous vehicles and workers while still ensuring workplace safety and network security.

Smart power tools can be programmed to detect the exact amount of energy to apply to a workpiece, thus minimizing damaged assets, workplace accidents and lost production time.

Unreliable wireless networks combined with high data and power requirements have so far limited smart tools' flexibility and versatility, preventing wider adoption and further innovation.

Industrial grade wireless solutions such as EchoRing can now untether smart tools while still upholding cable-like reliability, greatly multiplying their effectiveness. Innovative new concepts such as augmented reality, edge control and realtime links to production control systems can now be explored with fewer roadblocks.

Current industrial controls are typically rooted to a single location on the production floor - a reliable setup that ensures worker safety and has been in use for decades.

Operators at fixed workstations must all coordinate for production to run smoothly, which is often difficult due to a lack of mobility. Errors and miscommunication often result and can lead to accidents and stalled production.

EchoRing enables a single operator to reliably oversee and optimize an entire production line from a handheld wireless tablet. Scalability is improved as well, as fewer specialized workers are required for each production system while additional assembly lines can be added with ease.

Robotic manipulators are increasingly common in a wide range of fields from surgery to hazmat disposal, facilitated by emerging technologies such as VR and machine learning.

Manipulators are still limited to fixed wired setups due to strict reliability requirements: zero signal disruption and latencies of no higher than 10ms. As a result, many potential adopters are locked out due to a lack of mobility and accessibility.

Realtime and ultra-reliable wireless manipulator setups are now possible with EchoRing. Service-level performance within cycle times of 10ms is guaranteed, paving the way for wide adoption.