Specialized solutions such as automated guided vehicles (AGVs) and autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) play a key role in the transformation of the material handling industry, enabling faster and more accurate receiving, storing, moving, and shipping of items globally.
VDA 5050 is a standardized interface for AGV communication.
Growing diversity in automation solutions is placing greater demand on suppliers to provide customers with flexibility, requiring solutions where several different vehicle types, sometimes from multiple vendors, must operate in the same system.
Kollmorgen AMS has long been at the forefront of interoperability, enabling customers to automate virtually any type of vehicle and create a fleet tailored to their specific needs with NDC Solutions – a solution for scalable AGV and AMR applications.
In 2025, Kollmorgen AMS plans to forge ahead by adding support for the VDA 5050 protocol to its fleet manager, allowing customers to operate third-party vehicles alongside those based on NDC Solutions.
Johan Lundblad, general manager, Kollmorgen AMS, says: “We are very proud of our NDC Solutions platform, which has enabled customers to create customizable fleets tailored to their specific needs for over 50 years.
“By adding VDA 5050 support to our fleet manager and NDC Solutions-based vehicles, we will expand our offering even further to enable end-users to combine vehicles from different vendors as their automated fleets expand.”
Key features and benefits
- Interoperability: Third-party vehicles will be able to operate alongside vehicles in an NDC Solutions fleet management system via the VDA 5050 protocol. Vehicles based on NDC Solutions will also be able to operate under third-party fleet managers.
- Version support: The system is expected to support VDA 5050 Version 2.0, ensuring the latest upgrades in communication standards.
- Flexibility for end-customers: Customers can integrate various automated vehicles into their operations without being tied to a single vehicle provider, enhancing operational efficiency and reducing costs.
Kollmorgen AMS says its innovation and customer-centric solutions through this development provides a robust and flexible fleet manager that “meets the future requirements of the industry”.
