Review of Research for Docking Automatic Guided Vehicles and Mobile Robots

This paper provides a literature review of docking research, an area that has relatively few research articles as compared to generic automatic guided vehicle (AGV) or mobile robot research. Docking refers to the arrival and stopping at a position relative to another object. Docking can include positioning the vehicle or the equipment onboard the vehicle relative to another object, for example a tray station, trailer, or pallet. The paper is expected to be useful to ASTM Committee F45 for development of docking and navigation standards and to industrial vehicle research communities as basis to further docking research. The paper covers research on vehicle control for docking and on the use of sensors combined with intelligent vehicle control. Docking research on AGV or mobile robots with onboard robot arms is also included. Other related research described includes flexible cells and docking of other than ground vehicles, e.g., unmanned surface vehicles. Closing the survey is a discussion of patents related to docking and an extensive list of references.