Control architecture of material handling vehicles

This paper presents the architecture of autonomous material handling vehicles. The centralized coordination of multiple vehicles and three-layer architecture (deliberative, sequencing, and reflexive layers) are adopted. The navigation controls, including configuration control, visual servoing, path tracking, and collision avoidance, are developed. The finite state machine (FSM) that supervises the control modules to complete the material handling task is elucidated. The experimental results of a forklift transporting a pallet from an initial to a desired goal configuration are demonstrated.