Obstacle Avoidance for Line-Following AGV with Local Maps

Navigation of an Automatic Ground Vehicle in industrial environment is one of the key tasks for a such system and most commonly employs the guidance line following approach. Although, such systems were proven to be very reliable and robust, they are prone to interruptions due to obstacle being present on or even near the driving corridor of an AGV. Recently, improved navigation systems were introduced that allow the AGV to be localized globally, both eliminating the need for the guidance line and presenting dynamic path adaptation to avoid the obstacles. However, cost of such solutions are hard to justify if only the obstacle avoidance capability is needed. This paper presents lightweight environment mapping approach that is combined with trajectory planning and execution. The solution is implemented on an actual industrial AGV and is undergoing real-world tests.