Indian AGV manufacturer Yantra has partnered with Guidance Automation to upgrade its vehicle navigation options to include ‘natural feature’ navigation.

Yantra manufactures high quality automated guided vehicle solutions which relied on path-guidance technology, where the robot or AGV would navigate according to the tape that was laid in the warehouse.

The company noticed a change in market demand as ‘natural navigation’ became a buzzword, and found that clients were increasingly requesting adaptable vehicle navigation capability that didn’t depend on traditional line, wire or surface mark following where the environment was already feature-rich.

Despite the geographic distance – Guidance Automation is located in Leicester, United Kingdom, the initial installation took just over a month.

Rohit Dashrathi, Yantra’s CEO, says: “We were able to be supported remotely, and Guidance Automation could take control of our robots, help us navigate and conduct the troubleshooting.”

Since partnering with the UK navigation expert, Yantra’s maintenance-related expenses have fallen by almost 20% and manpower requirements dropped 25%.

One of the most important factors for Yantra was the facilitation of simpler automation, with elimination of the need to ‘rip and replace’ facilities in order to embed automation technologies into existing processes.

“After some initial training, Guidance Automation’s technology was straightforward to deploy, and we had no concerns, which added immense value to us as far as implementation at a customer-level is concerned,” Dashrathi explains.

“With Guidance Automation’s help and expertise, we have been able to successfully upgrade our vehicle navigation options and are already supplying enhanced AGVs/AMRs to our clients to meet the needs of their business operations,” he adds.