Coordinating Hundreds of Cooperative, Autonomous Vehicles in Warehouses

are turned upside down by innovations. The years of research on robotics and multiagent systems are coming together to provide just such a disruption to the material-handling industry. While autonomous guided vehicles (AGVs) have been used to move material within warehouses since the 1950s, they have been used primarily to transport very large, very heavy objects like rolls of uncut paper or engine blocks. The confluence of inexpensive wireless communications, computational power, and robotic components are making autonomous vehicles cheaper, smaller, and more capable. In recent years, we have seen an increase in the use of autonomous vehicles in the field. Examples include teleoperated military devices like iRobot’s Packbot and the pilotless Predator aircraft, both of which have seen service in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, exemplify the use of autonomous robots in scientific exploration. Closer to home, the Aerosonde autonomous aircraft has been used to plumb weather systems and recently flew in tropical storms that are unsafe for piloted aircraft. Commercially, autonomous vehicles are just hitting the market. ActivMedia‘s PatrolBot is a mobile monitoring system for buildings, and Aethon’s Tug maneuvers supply carts around hospitals. Robots have even penetrated the home in an attempt to relieve homeowners of their most tiresome chores. iRobot sells the Roomba autonomous vacuum and the Scooba floor washer, and Friendly Robotics, among others, markets robotic lawn mowers. Many more research projects are under way to build robots for search and rescue, mine exploration, land Articles