A Platoon-Based Approach for AGV Scheduling and Trajectory Planning in Fully Automated Production Systems

This article explores the management of automated guided vehicles within smart manufacturing systems, presenting an architecture designed to handle various stages in a fully automated production system. Trajectory planning is managed using a potential field controller, coupled with a time-of-arrival optimization for vehicles heading to shared resources, exploiting the concepts of virtual platoons. This approach optimizes arrival times at resources and minimizes energy consumption, prioritizing other elements directed toward currently available resources within the system. In addition, a decision-making algorithm schedules vehicles needing recharging due to low battery levels, ensuring uninterrupted production without overloading recharging stations and guaranteeing system efficiency. The proposed architecture is tested on three production orders of increasing complexity. Results demonstrate that the use of virtual platooning simplifies the dynamic trajectory generation of the potential field controller and, consequently, significantly reduces energy consumption and waiting times at shared resources, while reducing the variability on the production chain's makespan.