Terminology
The following sections will explain important concepts regarding Meili FMS.
General Terms
FMS
Fleet management software is computer software that enables companies to organise, manage, and coordinate a fleet of vehicles from a central information system. Fleet management aims to improve performance, reduce costs, and provide compliance with government regulations.
Meili FMS
Meili FMS is a cloud-based fleet management system for mobile robots of all brands, types, or sizes. The aim of this product is to facilitate the integration and global control of multiple robots in a single system through a web application, which can be accessed from all types of platforms and devices. Another objective is to democratise the access, control, and supervision of robotics systems. Hence, a user without robotics knowledge or experience can understand and manage their robots and operations. Meili FMS is mainly focused on internal logistics applications.
Organisation
An organisation is a top entity in the system. It is equivalent to a company, e.g. Meili Robots.
User
A user belongs to an organisation and to a team. Depending on the user’s role, they can have different levels of access to the system.
Team
A team is a group of users that shares a specific area and a specific fleet. A team can have access to either indoor areas or outdoor areas, depending on where the assigned task takes place.
Fleet Management
Vehicle
A vehicle is a machine used for transporting people or goods from an origin to a destination. In this case, a vehicle can be any type of autonomous mobile robot (AMR) or any automated guided vehicle (AGV).
AMR
An autonomous mobile robot (AMR) is a robot that has the ability to move autonomously without assistance from external human operators. It can navigate through its environment and perform tasks without the need for physical or virtual guides.
AGV
An automated guided vehicle or automatic guided vehicle (AGV) is a robot that follows markers or wires on the floor, or uses vision or lasers to navigate. They are often used in large-scale industrial applications to transport materials around manufacturing facilities or warehouses.
Fleet
A fleet contains a number of vehicles operating together or under the same ownership.
Task Allocation
Task
In this case, a task is defined as a basic operation of transporting a load from an origin station to a destination station. This task belongs to a team and is executed immediately by a vehicle. Note that there is an important difference between a task and a mission — as is explained below.
Subtask
A subtask can be added to a task if a vehicle needs to make different stops along its way. For example, when you want to carry out a task immediately from Station A to Station D, but with several stops along the way (say Station B and C), you can add these stations as subtasks to the initial task (Station A to Station D). Note that subtasks can be added to both tasks, missions, and presets.
Mission
In Meili FMS, missions are defined as a set of scheduled tasks, arranged in a particular execution order. Whereas a task immediately carries out a single, one-time operation, missions are specifically designed for users of Meili FMS to schedule tasks for a later point in time. In addition, missions can include several tasks. An example of a mission could thus be a vehicle moving a load from station A to station B, dropping the load, then picking up another load and delivering it to station C
Preset
In Meili FMS, presets are defined as a set of predefined tasks, which can happen over and over again, on a regular basis. Using a preset can help save time and effort by not having to create the same task time and time again.
Map Edition & Enrichment
Area
An area is a part of the facility that is designated to a team and represented on a map. This defines where the vehicles can operate.
Indoor area
An indoor area is an enclosed space inside a building.
Outdoor area
An outdoor area is an area outside a building, with or without a roof.
Subarea
A subarea is a part of an area and can be represented on a submap.
Map
A map is a 2-dimensional (2D) representation of an area
Linking point
A linking point is a common point shared by two different maps, which helps vehicles to navigate between two different areas.
Station
A station is where vehicles stop to pick up or drop off transported loads.
Docking station
A docking station is a hardware frame that enables a vehicle to get access to a power supply for charging. Normally, docking stations are placed on fixed locations inside a facility.
Base Station
A base station is a central computer system that receives and processes data from all vehicles in a facility.
Deployment
On-prem
Refers to the process of installing, operating, and maintaining the Meili FMS on a company’s own internal infrastructure. Internet access is not required for operation. An on-premises (on-prem) installation is accessible through a subdomain of a customer-specific domain, for example, meili-fms.customer1.com. The on-prem setup allows for customization per deployment, integrating directly with the customer’s own domain infrastructure.