Bridging Theory and Practice: A Researcher’s Dive into Mixed Fleet Safety in Belgium

In the Mixed Fleet project, I’m leading the Systemic Safety work package at VTT. As the name suggests, our focus is on ensuring the safe operation of mixed fleets. Production companies are increasingly turning to mixed fleet-based operations, because a well-implemented and efficient fleet can significantly boost both productivity and flexibility. We understand mixed fleets as a combination of different connected machines and vehicles with varying levels of autonomy, all working in the same shared space. These fleets can include manually operated machines like forklift trucks, autonomously navigating equipment such as Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) and Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs), and, of course, human workers. When humans and machines collaborate to achieve a common system goal, a wide range of safety challenges emerge, and that’s where our research steps in: We investigate new, emerging safety risks and try to develop system-level safety concepts that enable both safe and efficient orchestration of these complex systems.

A personal highlight of the Mixed Fleet project was the 2,5-month long research stay this spring in Belgium at KU Leuven’s satellite campus in Bruges. At KU Leuven, I was working closely with Laure Buysse (PhD Researcher), who shares my interest in safety research but with a more hands-on approach to robotics. Together, we applied a risk assessment to a real-world use case involving a fleet of three AMRs operating in a small-scale factory environment. My time in Belgium was a valuable chance to move from theory to practice. It was insightful to discuss methods, share perspectives, and learn from each other, in my case especially about the practical side of working with autonomous systems in real-world settings.