A Two-Stage Congestion-Aware Routing Method for Automated Guided Vehicles in Warehouses

Abstract

With multi-AGV (automated guided vehicle) systems gradually employed in modern warehouses, the research on how to coordinate AGVs in an efficient way has attracted more scholars than ever. As the size of AGVs grows over time, the possibility of traffic congestion is increasing rapidly, especially in a limited space. Therefore, the congestion-aware routing method is one of the most vital and fundamental topics in multi-AGV control research. In this paper, a two-stage congestion-minimizing routing method is presented. The proposed method not only plans paths that avoid congested areas, but also changes paths in real time to cope with the volatile traffic situations. An experiment is carried out to test the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed method, and the results are highly promising in terms of alleviating traffic congestion.