Navigation performance evaluation for automatic guided vehicles

Automatic guided vehicles (AGVs), an industrial form of a mobile robot, typically navigate using a central computer commanding AGV movement on predefined paths. How well they follow these paths is not well-defined in research articles and their performance is reported in non-standard manufacturer specifications. Furthermore, AGV technology is advancing towards vision guidance to map and localize their position from onboard the vehicle, whereas performance evaluation of advanced navigation techniques is just beginning. This paper describes AGV experiments using ground truth measurement comparison for performance evaluation of AGV navigation. A generic test procedure and metrics, described herein, are to be recommended to ASTM F45, a recently formed committee on performance of AGVs, as a navigation test method for use by the AGV and mobile robot industries.