Vision-based range finder for automated guided vehicle navigation

Automated guided vehicle (AGV) plays an important role in modern factory automation. One basic guidance methodology, magnetic tape guidance has been widely utilized in most AGV systems for more than 20 years. However, in order to adopt the flexible production line changeover, free-ranging AGV is on-demand increasingly. In this study, a vision-based range finder, which includes a line-shaped laser transmitter and image sensor is designed and implemented for AGV navigation. The line-shaped laser transmitter transmits a line-shaped laser, and the image sensor senses the line-shaped laser to output a line-shaped laser image. The distance between object and range finder is estimated according the height position of laser line in line-shaped laser image. The experimental results show that the AGV integrated with the proposed vision-based range finder is able to navigate in a constructed hospital environment. The average location error is less than 1%.