Automated Guided Vehicle Navigation Systems
Summary
Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV) navigation systems encompass integrated hardware and software architectures that enable driverless transport platforms to perceive their surroundings, estimate their own position and plan safe, efficient trajectories. Such systems commonly fuse data from lidar, cameras, inertial measurement units, optical encoders and radio-frequency beacons within Simultaneous Localization And Mapping frameworks to build real-time environmental maps and compute precise pose estimates. Navigation strategies range from fixed-path methods—such as guide-wires and magnetic tapes—to vision-based landmark recognition and wireless localisation techniques suitable for GPS-denied environments. Global path planning typically employs grid-based search methods and optimisation routines, while local obstacle avoidance is achieved through approaches like artificial potential fields and vector field histograms. Advanced control schemes, including model predictive control, neural-network controllers and fuzzy logic, provide robust trajectory tracking across indoor, outdoor and uneven terrains. Continuous advances in sensor fusion, algorithmic efficiency and sub-centimetre positioning accuracy have broadened AGV deployment in warehouse logistics, manufacturing automation and service robotics around the world.
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Automated Guided Vehicle Navigation Systems publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in automated guided vehicle navigation systems across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Lidar: A light-detection and ranging sensor that measures distances by timing pulsed laser reflections to generate high-resolution environmental maps.
Simultaneous Localization And Mapping (SLAM): A computational framework whereby a vehicle concurrently constructs a map of an unknown environment and estimates its location within that map.
Model Predictive Control (MPC): An optimisation-based control strategy that computes future control actions by solving a constrained prediction problem over a moving time horizon.
Ultra-Wideband (UWB): A radio technology employing very short pulses across a broad frequency spectrum to enable precise ranging and positioning in indoor environments.
Artificial Potential Field: A navigation technique that treats obstacles as repulsive forces and goals as attractive forces to guide path planning and obstacle avoidance.
References
- Navigation Techniques and Algorithms for Mobile Robots and Automated Guided Vehicles. Journal of Robotics Spectrum (2024).
- Curve-Aware Model Predictive Control (C-MPC) Trajectory Tracking for Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV) over On-Road, In-Door, and Agricultural-Land. Sustainability (2022).
- AGV Localization System Based on Ultra-Wideband and Vision Guidance. Electronics (2020).
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