Today’s systems of internal material flow must cope with high demands: an in-creasing variety and shorter innovation and product life cycles lead to difficulties in predicting order loads and structures. The order-based production is becoming increasingly important. Against this background, material handling systems have to be dynamically adjustable and thereby cause the lowest possible cost. Approaches of modularization and decentralization both in the field of control software and in the design of conveyor systems promise great potential in terms of flexibility, robustness and reusability. Technological developments in the areas of sensors, data processing and storage, communication, locating and identification support this trend and enable new, innovative solutions for transportation tasks in logistic systems - including swarm-like conveyor systems.
