Design of multi-agv system with tracking, collision avoidance and coordination

With the develop of industrial automation, a mature and adaptive tracking and collision avoidance in multi-AGV coordination system has a pressing demand. Most of the research focuses on a part of a multi-AGV coordination system such as tracking algorithms, collision avoidance methods and mechanism of coordination. In this paper, efforts have been made to design a AGV system covering a whole set of tracking, collision avoidance and formation functionalities with performance analysis. There are three major aspects for the construction, including collision avoidance, tracking, and coordination. Collision avoidance is integrated in the navigation algorithm, which is based on the map of surrounding environments built by Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM). It is expected to be smooth and automatic by timely adjusting velocity and distance between obstacles. Tracking of AprilTag is the second key function to complete the system. Every slave AGV is able to track the master AGV according to the visual information provided by the AprilTag, and maintain a specified distance to form a designated pattern. The coordination function is that the AGV system consist a cluster of vehicles in master or slave mode traversing an optimized path toward given destinations. The effectiveness of the system design is demonstrated through experiments. The paper provided the detailed design procedure, numerical analysis of the measurement data and recommendations for further improvement of the system design.