Global Localization and Position Tracking of Automatic Guided Vehicles using passive RFID Technology

Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) are used in warehouses, distribution centers and manufacturing plants in order to automate the internal material flow. Usually AGVs are designed to transport large and heavy transport units such as Euro-pallets or mesh pallets. Just-in-time inventory management and lean production requires small transportation units to enable one-piece-flow. A solution to meet these demands are small automatic vehicles for material transport, which can replace conventional conveyor systems or large AGVs. This paper presents an inexpensive solution for localization and tracking of small AGVs. Global localization is realized by detection of RFID transponders, which are integrated in the floor. The measurements of the RFID reader are fused with data from wheel encoders using Quantized Kalman filtering. The paper presents results from experiments with a NaviFloor ® installation. The experiments show, that the proposed Quantized Kalman Filter provides a similar localization accuracy compared to a Monte Carlo Particle Filter, but with much lower computational expense.