Automated guided vehicle navigation with obstacle avoidance in normal and guided environments

The paper presents techniques for navigation by Automated Guided Vehicle in two different environments to reach its destination. The environments are, a) Normal(unguided) and b) Guided. An artificial potential function is defined to seek out for goal in normal environment. Initial calculation of optimal path out of several paths from source to destination and traversing the chosen path through nodes (RF-ID tags) is the technique for guided environment. Obstacles hinder the desired movement in both the environments. Attractive and repulsive forces approach helps in avoiding obstacles in unguided environment and leads to point of minimum potential for stabilization. The reverse tracking to the previous node is the technique proposed while facing the obstacle in guided environment. On reaching the previous node, it recalculates optimal path barring the current one if obstacle is still present on that path. The results obtained show the efficacy of techniques in trajectory tracking avoiding the obstacles for both the environments.