Maximum number of robots OpenRMF can handle (#406)

Posted by @shannenlolol:

Hi, I would like to ask what is the maximum/recommended number of robots that can be deployed using OpenRMF at once?
Thank you! :slight_smile:

Posted by @cwrx777:

Adding to this question, how many fleets are supported in traffic-editor and in RMF?

Posted by @mxgrey:

There isn’t a specific maximum or recommended number of robots that RMF can support. The biggest factor in scaling and behavior for RMF is not the number of robots but rather the risk (frequency and severity) of traffic conflicts. Risk of traffic conflicts primarily come from two places:

  1. Density of moving robots (How many robots are moving in close proximity to each other?)
  2. How organized the traffic flow is (Are there many intersections and many bidirectional lanes that could lead to conflicts? One-way lanes and minimizing intersections can eliminate a lot of traffic conflicts.)

So the limit will be situational. RMF today targets relatively low-density scenarios, meaning it is not intended for high-density warehouse facilities. We’re working to cover that in the next generation, but it won’t be ready in the short term.

Adding to this question, how many fleets are supported in traffic-editor and in RMF?

It looks like the traffic-editor supports up to 10 graphs. That limit doesn’t exist in the upcoming rmf_site_editor. But also different fleets can share the same graph, so you could have any number of fleets using each of those 10 graphs, but if each fleet requires its own graph then the limit with traffic-editor would be 10. There’s no other limit that the traffic-editor imposes on the number of fleets.

There’s also very little performance impact per fleet, so having one whole “fleet” per robot wouldn’t have a significant impact on performance versus having all robots in one fleet. The overall number of robots in the system will be the dominating factor for scaling.


Edited by @mxgrey at 2024-01-09T05:21:34Z