Högskolan i Skövde

Automated guided vehicles (AGVs) are the key equipment of flexible production systems and an important means for realizing a modern logistics system that meets the demands of Industry 4.0. AGVs are used from the mid 50th to delegate monotonous work of delivering products from the human to the automated device. In the long run, the usage of AGVs brings huge benefits to the manufacturing companies. But the purchase and installation of these devices significantly increase operational costs. This fact halts small and medium-sized enterprises from adopting this technology on their shop floors.

The idea of this thesis work is to design and create a device that can be retailed at a significantly lower price without compromising flexibility and functional properties, to be used by smaller businesses. For this mater are used more affordable parts that can bring the cost down of a final product.

This work describes the process of developing a differential drive mobile platform under the control of the robotic operating system. The process includes the development of a virtual model; selection of required components and investigation of their compatibility; development of chassis, suspension, and gear system; development of a hardware interface to interact with hardware components; configuration of different algorithms of control, cartography, and navigation; evaluation of the device.

The research method is used in this work is design and creation due to the necessity of creating a physical prototype. The budget specification for the project was set to 50000 SEK and the desired payload capacity was set to 100kg. The work has resulted in the creation of a prototype of the AGV. The cost of the project is 20595 SEK. The evaluation of a prototype resulted in a maximum towing force of 300N. The load capacity is limited by the mobile base is 400kg. Safety sensors are not used in this project as the device was meant to operate in a controlled environment.

The work also gives an evaluation of the Gmapping algorithm in case of using the laser scanner (RPlidar A1) and two algorithms of navigation stack: TrajectoryPlannerROS and DWA planner. The final prototype is evaluated to support an autonomous movement within a controlled environment.