Setting up a robot with VDA5050

Setting Up a Robot with VDA5050 #

The following sections assume that:

  1. You have an account with administrator permissions or above. (Account Setup)
  2. You are part of an organisation.
  3. You have a team in Meili FMS.
  4. You have at least one vehicle created on the selected team. (Adding Vehicles)

Ensure that all the above points are fulfilled before continuing with this guide.

Setting Up vehicle Topics #

Meili FMS allows to personalize the MQTT topics that are defined by the standard, specifically the “Manufacturer” and “Serial Number” of the robot. These parameters are essential not only for the communication to the Meili FMS but also to have unique identification for robots in the fleet.

Note It is important to have a unique Serial Number for each of the robot. If possible, use the serial number provided by the manufacturer. When a vehicle with the same serial number as an already existing vehicle is added it will be rejected by the system and a “vehicle serial number already used” notification will pop-up.

After logging in, press the manage organisation button to access the administrator page. If you do not see it, it means you do not have the required permissions to access the organisation settings. In the “Vehicles” page, edit your vehicle by pressing the edit icon on the right side. In the “General” section of the pop-up window, you can edit the custom manufacturer and serial number fields used in the VDA5050 mqtt topics.

Create MQTT credentials for a Robot #

Meili FMS uses 2 factors authentication to connect to the robots. The FMS automatically generates a unique “Client id” and “Password” when creating a new Fleet setup. Currently, to ensure the correct communication, when using VDA5050 it is necessary to use one fleet setup per vehicle.

To create a VDA5050 fleet, in the “Fleet Setup” page click on the “Add fleet setup” button.

  1. Give a name to your new fleet.
  2. Select the team.
  3. Select “mqtt” as “Communication protocol”.
  4. Select “Json” as “Communication format”.
  5. Select “Vehicle” as “Setup type”.
  6. Add the desired vehicle by pressing the “Add vehicle” icon. Select the vehicle from the list (there is no need of adding prefix or modify other fields when adding a vehicle).

Once the fleet setup is created and saved, you can access the topics and MQTT credentials by pressing the edit icon on the desired fleet. In the pop-up windows, click on the “Channel” tab. Here you can see the root level, command level and status level topics used by Meili FMS in VDA5050.

In the same tab you can scroll down and see your MQTT credentials (“Client id” and “Password”) which Meili FMS uses to authenticate connections to the MQTT broker.