Future Autonomous Load Carriers : Conceptual Design and Development

This report concerns the concept development of an autonomous load carrier whichneeds to be integrated with the autonomous truck NXT. The main purpose of thethesis is to develop a load carrier which can be used during off peak times with theautonomous truck which reduces the traffic, pollution and congestion in cities.Toachieve this a lot of pre- study in terms of research and survey is conducted on thetopics which are going to be used during the course of the thesis. The problemswhich were investigated during the thesis are the problems related to goods loadingand unloading from the warehouse to the truck and from the truck to the customer.To bridge the gap between these two processes an autonomous load carrier is thesolution. The product development methodology used by Ulrich and Eppinger [1] isused in this thesis. The findings from the pre-study was the need and type of the loadcarrier needed by the customers. Based on the requirements the concepts for the loadcarrier is developed and brainstormed. After the brainstorming process a concept isfinalised and a system level design of the concept is designed and presented in thethesis. The concept is designed to load and unload roll cages and pallets carryingfood products as the goods as it is one of the busy and essential services beingtransported today. The concept is made to be compact, safe, affordable, strong forit be integrated to the autonomous truck. The dimensions and specifications of theload carrier are approximated based on the study and research