A Development Platform for Real Time Routing of an Autonomous Ground Vehicle to Complete Prioritized Tasks

• Main Authors: Woo, Sijin, Keller, Alexander Mathew, Choudhry, Wahab, Trakhtengerts, Ran, Bakshi, Soovadeep, Yan, Zeyu, Chen, Dongmei
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: Autonomous ground vehicles; Heuristic algorithms; Job shop scheduling; optimal routing; Optimal scheduling; Planning; priority tasking; Real-time systems; Routing; Task analysis
• ISSN: 2378-5861
• DOI: 10.23919/ACC.2019.8814614

Autonomous ground vehicles (AGVs) have been deployed for industrial automation. Despite the advancement that has been achieved in the field of AGV technology, there are still many challenges associated with this domain. For instance, it is highly challenging to optimally schedule and plan the routing of an AGV in real time, where the AGV is stochastically assigned tasks with various priorities. The AGV routing based on task priority might be different from that based on the shortest path. There will be a tradeoff between completing tasks in their priority order and completing the tasks within the shortest time. Additionally, real time planning of the routing is desirable so that the AGV can update its path to accommodate the assigned tasks and achieve optimal efficiency. In order to address these challenges, this paper introduces an AGV development platform that can optimally generate an optimal path to route the AGV in real time considering both to achieve the shortest route and to accommodate the task priority. The platform also provides a tool for the actual design of the AGV.