Flexible time–space network formulation and hybrid metaheuristic for conflict-free and energy-efficient path planning of automated guided vehicles

Operations of Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) are desired to be more energy-efficient while maintaining high transport productivity, motivated by the green production requirements. This paper investigates a new energy-efficient planning problem for determining conflict-free paths of the AGVs in its transport roadmap. In this problem, the...

Energy-Efficient Routing of a Multirobot Station: A Flexible Time-Space Network Approach

This paper investigates a novel routing problem of a multi-robot station in a manufacturing cell. In the existing literature, the objective is to minimize the cycle time or energy consumption separately. The routing problem considered in this paper aims to reduce the cycle time and energy consumption jointly for each robot while avoiding...

Model Predictive Path Planning of AGVs: Mixed Logical Dynamical Formulation and Distributed Coordination

Most of the existing path planning methods of automated guided vehicles (AGVs) are static. This paper proposes a new methodology for the path planning of a fleet of AGVs to improve the flexibility, robustness, and scalability of the AGV system. We mathematically describe the transport process as a dynamical system using an ad hoc mixed...

Distributed Model Predictive Contouring Control for Real-Time Multi-Robot Motion Planning

Existing motion planning algorithms for multi-robot systems must be improved to address poor coordination and increase low real-time performance. This paper proposes a new distributed real-time motion planning method for a multi-robot system using Model Predictive Contouring Control (MPCC). MPCC allows separating the tracking accuracy and...