Development of a hybrid sensor system for AGVs

Ultrasonic sensor systems have been successfully used in autonomous guided vehicles (AGVs) to measure the distance between obstacles. However, when the direction information about the obstacles is also required, a system with only ultrasonic sensors can fail to discriminate obstacles within an acceptable range. Infrared sensors are more sensitive to directions, but the use of them are less straight forward in measuring the distance. This paper describes a low-cost hybrid sensor system built with both infrared and ultrasonic sensors used in an experimental autonomous vehicle. The system is used both to detect obstacles and to provide information for generating re-enforced map of surrounding environments