Fake Obstacle Generation-based Pallet Alignment for Forklifts

Warehouse receiving capacity is one of the major bottlenecks in supply chain. Due to shortages of skilled labor and insufficient material handling equipment, a receiving company can face several hours of delay. Autonomous forklifts can compensate for the above issues with efficient material handling capabilities and longer deployment times. However, this requires accurate navigation, control and docking algorithms to safely engage pallets and transport them. This paper proposes a novel strategy for efficiently aligning a forklift to a pallet by generating fake obstacles near the goal and selecting from via-points generated depending on relative position of the forklift. In addition, we describe a simple state machine architecture that helps funnel the forklift into position using this strategy, and present simulation results.