August 4, 2015
Hitachi Introduces Technology for Automated Guided Vehicle: Real Time Map Update and Self-Localization
Hitachi, Ltd. today announced that it has developed a technology for automated guided vehicle, which can transport the entire shelf of products in a warehouse. This technology is capable of detecting the movements of shelves to perform self-localization while updating the warehouse map of the product shelves registered in the automated guided vehicles in real time. Due to this technology, the automated guided vehicle is able to drive autonomously without makers labeled on the floor as guidance. By eliminating the markers arranged on the floor for vehicle guidance, not only the cost of marker installation and maintenance can be reduced, but also the flexibility of movement path and equipment layout can be increased.
The developed technology is to manage and categorize the contents of the warehouse map that is registered in the automated guided vehicle into the "unchanging areas" such as walls and pillars in a warehouse and the "changing area" such as product shelves. After performing self-localization by aligning this map with the location data of pillars and product shelves that are measured by the range finder mounted on the automated guided vehicle, only the locations of product shelves in the "changing area" will be updated. By performing this type of updates, the locations of unchangeable walls and pillars will not be updated mistakenly in order to ensure the high accuracy of the map. Furthermore, by restricting the processed area to the "changing area," the updating time of the map has been shortened. Overall, the automated guided vehicle is capable of recognizing its own location by reflecting the surrounding changes into the map in real time in a warehouse environment where the product shelves' layout constantly changes.
