LIFNS: Design of a novel Lidar-IMU fusion navigation system for AGVs in smart factories

Traditional Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV) robots commonly employ 2D plane navigation systems. However, with the expansion of AGV application scenarios and the increasing complexity of structures, the limitations of existing 2D navigation systems have become more pronounced, rendering them inadequate for addressing these challenges. To tackle this issue, this paper proposes a novel navigation system suitable for AGV robots composed of fused Lidar and Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), named as Lidar-IMU Fusion Navigation System (LIFNS). LIFNS primarily comprises mapping, localization, and fused path planning modules. In the mapping module, a 3D point cloud map for precise 3D localization and a 2D grid map for path planning are constructed using multiple-line Lidar and IMU. For the localization module, a fusion localization approach is introduced, combining IMU data with Normal Distributions Transform (NDT) point cloud registration through Unscented Kalman Filtering (UKF). Finally, global path planning is executed using the A* algorithm on the grid map, while local path planning utilizes the Timed-Elastic Band (TEB) algorithm. The effectiveness and universality of LIFNS are validated through simulation experiments and real-world deployment tests. The experimental results demonstrate that LIFNS achieves centimeter-level accuracy in both mapping and localization, effectively alleviating the issues of low precision and significant limitations present in traditional AGV robots. This positions LIFNS with promising applications in enclosed settings such as smart factories, industrial parks, and healthcare facilities.