In addition, they often lack important equipment features such as redundant speed monitoring sensors, service brakes or integrated safety engineering. Thanks to the new TAS traction drive system from WITTENSTEIN, these limitations are a thing of the past.

The company specializes particularly in the automotive, print and paper and hospital and healthcare sectors as well as intralogistics. The service offer includes first-line system implementations, which are based on the special requirements of the customers.

At John Deere in Mannheim, DS AUTOMOTION GmbH has implemented a flexible and highly available transport solution for the installation of agricultural machinery engines. Here, AGV automated guided vehicles – powered by their WITTENSTEIN TAS - move heavy loads from one assembly station to the next. The TAS vehicles impress with their smooth running, low energy consumption and high reliability and availability. TAS therefore offers all the features which will become standard in the future concept for AGV drive solutions.

The vehicle axles comprise two servo drives from the TPM⁺ product family and decentralized drive amplifiers from the simco drive series. The TAS product family offers systems solutions in four power classes and sizes. The drive systems allow for individual adaptations, such as regulating the gear reduction when using the motor encoder and when selecting bus interfaces or brakes. Customized variants are also possible. Applicable to all versions, TAS vehicles can not only drive, but also steer as they are structured with differential drives. Steering and turning the vehicle is made possible by a speed difference between both drives and the vehicle axle.

Steering and turning the vehicle is made possible by a speed difference between both drives and the vehicle axle. A full range of technical highlights makes the traction drive system an ideal choice for AGV automated guided vehicle systems. This means that gearboxes are integrated directly into the drive wheels. On the one hand, this allows for optimal capacity utilization and, on the other, makes the TAS very flat and compact. This is particularly beneficial when vehicles need to drive under the load to be carried - such as in hospital logistics. A further benefit is the low energy consumption: The less power that is consumed, the longer the driving cycle the AGV can offer and therefore the greater the availability.