Design and development of a new autonomous transportation robot for finished vehicles docking transportation in RO/RO logistics terminal

Abstract

With the continuous growth of the automobile trade, the inefficiency of traditional cargo transshipment in Roll-On/Roll-Off (RO/RO) terminals has become increasingly pronounced. As a result, the adoption of autonomous transportation robot (ATR) for the automatic handling of finished vehicles has seen significant growth. However, ATRs designed for this purpose face several limitations, including suboptimal mobility performance and the necessity for additional infrastructure to support their operation. This paper introduces a novel ATR that offers enhanced flexibility and operational capability. To further optimize the positioning of LiDAR, we develop a multi-stage LiDAR fusion algorithm for the precise localization of finished vehicles, incorporating an event-triggered decision-making approach to improve positioning accuracy. Based on the accurate positioning data, we propose a docking strategy consisting of two key phases: the approach phase and the docking phase. During the docking phase, an enhanced Model Predictive Control (MPC) algorithm, integrated with a Radial Basis Function (RBF) neural network, is designed to enable real-time adjustment of the robot’s docking attitude. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is validated through real-world robot experimentals demonstrating its practical viability.