Development of IoT Based Mobile Robot for Automated Guided Vehicle Application

Abstract

Mobile robot has been one of the researches focuses in this era due to the demands in automation. Many industry players have been using mobile robot in their industrial plant for the purpose of reducing manual labour as well as ensuring more efficient and systematic process. The mobile robot for industrial usage is typically called as Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV). The advances in the navigation technology allows the AGV to be used for many tasks such as for carrying load to pre-determined locations sent from mobile app, stock management and pallet handling. More recently, the concept of Industry 4.0 has been widely practiced in the industries, where important process data are exchange over the internet for an improved management. This paper will therefore discuss the development of Internet of Things (IoT) bases mobile robot for AGV application. In this project a mobile robot platform is designed and fabricated. The robot is controlled to navigate from one location to another using line following mechanism. Mobile App is designed to communicate with the robot through the Internet of Things (IoT). RFID tags are used to identify the locations predetermined by user. The results show that the prototype is able to follow line and go to any location that was preregistered from the App through the IoT. The mobile robot is also able to avoid collision and any obstacles that exist on its way to perform any task inside the workplace.