Transporters are vehicles used to transport material items in the modeled environment. They are defined by TransporterFleet block of Material Handling Library.
Depending on the navigation type, the transporters movement is conducted either along network paths and nodes or in free space. Additional rules for transporter fleets with path-guided navigation type, such as custom routing, are specified in TransporterControl block. By default, transporters with the same navigation type recognize each other as obstacles, but you can also make them recognize transporters with a different navigation type.
Transporters take the rectangular nodes and polygonal nodes with restricted access into account during the calculation of their routes. Any path that even partially crosses a node where access is restricted, also becomes unavailable. If a transporter with path-guided navigation is approaching a node which becomes restricted, it will wait at the node's border until the restriction is lifted. If at this time the transporter's route is recalculated, but the new route still demands that transporter moves through the restricted node, the transporter will exit the logical queue and enter it again.
When a transporter enters a restricted node that is currently closed via a lift or a level gate, it will stop there and wait until the node opens again. Meanwhile, in order to avoid a deadlock, the lift that brought the transporter is released and becomes available to other transporters.
You can specify a home location for transporters where they can return to / stay when released.
Every transporter unit collects time utilization statistics.
Transporter movement is controlled by MoveByTransporter block of Material Handling Library. This block comprises all necessary parameters to seize a transporter, load it with a material item, specify its destination and release the transporter upon reaching this destination.
If you are modeling more complex processes, the seize and release actions can be defined by individual blocks: SeizeTransporter and ReleaseTransporter respectively.
You can postpone the start of transporters movement by specifying a delay for route calculation in TransporterFleet block.
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