OrchesTruck Multi-Robot Coordination (TruckTrix^® Coop)

Thanks to its modular architecture, the helyOS^® Control Tower framework offers seamless integration of state-of-the-art motion planning algorithms.

TruckTrix^® Path provides highly precise tracks to navigate even complex articulated vehicles through narrow passages.

OrchesTruck (the coordination planner of the TruckTrix^® family) goes one step further and optimizes the operation of mobile machines at fleet level. It addresses the fundamental challenge of coordinating multiple robots that follow their own individual paths within a shared work environment. By using the latest technologies from robotics research, combined with support for complex vehicle structures, robot driving times are minimized while mutual collisions and deadlocks are avoided ^{[Keppler2020]}. This makes OrchesTruck the ideal planning service for the automation of trucks in logistics centers, seaports, and other space-constrained environments.

Handling disruptions and dynamic obstacles

But what happens when precisely coordinated motion trajectories cannot be executed as planned due to dynamic obstacles or interaction with non-automated traffic? The OrchesTruck solution includes the RMTRUCK and SAFESTOP algorithms developed at Fraunhofer IVI and TU Dresden. These algorithms are designed to minimize the impact of disruptions on overall system performance by warning affected vehicles before they enter bottlenecks and quickly maneuvering them out of shared intersections ^{[Schäfer 2023, Keppler 2020]}. In this way, the consistency of other planned motion trajectories is preserved, and affected vehicles can either take detours according to local or global path planning or wait for obstacles to be cleared.

Just like global planning with TruckTrix^® and OrchesTruck, our local path planning algorithm ^{[Mattenklodt 2025]} allows to account for the swept paths of vehicles with complex geometries and kinematics – especially for long vehicles such as trucks with (semi-)trailers – while meeting real-time requirements.

• Coordination of multiple trucks with complex vehicle geometries in logistics centers
• Predictive obstacle avoidance along planned trajectories using live maps
• Multi-robot coordination in shared work environments
• Coordination of machine fleets in agriculture

TruckTrix^®-Coop is offered as a webservice and can be integrated seamlessly into the helyOS^® Control Tower framework.

Our simulation framework for distributed virtual agents helps deploy the software and enables testing in realistic scenarios. It features a 3D world simulation including simulated sensor data in Gazebo and kinematic co-simulation for complex vehicle combinations.

• F. Keppler and S. Wagner, »Prioritized Multi-Robot Velocity Planning for Trajectory Coordination of Arbitrarily Complex Vehicle Structures,« in IEEE/SICE International Symposium on System Integration (SII 2020), Honolulu, HI, USA, Jan. 2020, pp. 1075–1080, doi: 10.1109/SII46433.2020.9026256.
• F. Keppler, S. Wagner, and K. Janschek, »SAFESTOP: Disturbance Handling in Prioritized Multi-Robot Trajectory Planning,« in 4th IEEE International Conference on Robotic Computing (IRC 2020), virtual conference, Sep. 2020, pp. 226–231, doi: 10.1109/IRC.2020.00043.
• J. Schäfer, F. Keppler, S. Wagner, and K. Janschek, »RMTRUCK: Deadlock-free Execution of Multi-robot Plans under Delaying Disturbances,« in 26th International IEEE Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC 2023), Bilbao, Spain, Sep. 2023.
• L. Mattenklodt, Development of local path planning for heavy articulated vehicles, Diplomarbeit, Technische Universität Dresden, 2025.