Submitted by- Nachiket Lohkare(A-46),

Navin Labhan(A-47),
Nikhil Shahare(A-48),
Nishil Kale(A-49),
Paras Pangantiwar(A-50)

__________________________________________________
Scheduling and Routing of Automated Guided Vehicles: A
review study
Abstract 1. Introduction
In this technologically growing era
In today's competitive business scenario,
industries are constantly trying to be fully
Automated Guided Vehicle System
automated and in order to achieve this stage
(AGVS) has become a popular and
every process that is been carried out
principal strategic tool for automated
industry should be with minimum human
warehouses. Being one of the enabling
interference. One such crucial process is of
technologies, not only it has acquired
material handling and to automate this task
considerable attention in the span of the
is of great challenge and therefore here
past two decades. Key benefits provided by
comes the role of Automated Guided
this system are its efficient material flow
Vehicles (AGV). AGVs are mainly
and distribution among workstations with
deployed for loading and unloading of
time and place precision which are
resources form one location to another with
accomplished by dispatching and
great ease and efficiency. These vehicles
scheduling of tasks and routing of AGVs
also help in towing materials behind them
and therefore for these purposes various
making a train like formation and are
scheduling and routing algorithm are
attached automatically. Automated guided
needed to resolve accumulation of
carts are the most basic type of AGVs and
resources around AGVs. This paper
are used to transport small materials.
reviews the literature related to the
Another type is forklift type of AGV they
scheduling, and routing of AGVs giving a
are similar to human driven forklift the only
brief introduction of the AGVs systems and
change is that it is fully automated and is
to further give a theoretical base, the
more efficient. Towing AGV are another
definitions of routing, and scheduling
such type which are used to tow one or
procedures are discussed along with
more non-powered vehicle like train and
problems faced and their respective
are often used for transporting heavy loads
solutions.
which needs to be transported to larger
Keywords: AGVs, Scheduling, Routing, distances. Apart from this one important
Efficient solutions factor for efficient travel of AGVs is the
mode of navigation in simple terms we can
say to understand how these AGVs travel.
Here also there are different methods that
are mostly used for safe navigation such as

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Magnetic guide tape in which a magnetic
tape is attached to floor and a onboard
sensor detects this tapes and follows it as it
is spread all over the factory. Next is the
wired navigation which have wires
embedded into the floor and this wire
transmits a signal which is detected by
onboard sensor. The most recent invention
is the laser-based navigation and is
extensively used in this a reflective tape is
used and AGV is attached with laser
transmitter and receiver which sends laser
signal and gets reflected back through this Fig1: Material handling through AGV’s
laser tape. Another mode of navigation are
through inertial or gyroscopic method
which are controlled by computer system
and other is vision guidance and in this type 2. Challenges faced
cameras are employed on the vehicle.
The main function or we can say objective
Most AGVs are self-propelled which are
of AGVs is to arrive at the destination with
guided by software and sensor and
great ease and as per planning, but several
therefore it helps AGV to move in a defined
obstacles are to be overcome to ensure a
pathways and to carry this process
hassle free and a smooth operation. In
smoothly scheduling and routing forms a
industrial applications, AGVS are needed
integral part of the material handling.
to meet the demand of transporting material
Scheduling can be briefly described as the
correctly and in sequence. If these tasks are
process of dispatching of AGV to do certain
not carried out efficiently, the whole
task such as picking up and dropping
production system is affected. Some
materials or loads that needs to be
common problems that are encountered
transferred at shortest possible time under
while managing AGVS can be listed as
given circumstances. Routing on other hand
follows:
is to find optimal or most practical path for
AGV. So then the important aspect of • Collisions: Collisions are basically
decision is to find the correct route for AGV when more than one AGVs are
before this the main question is that is there travelling on same route at the same
such route which can take the vehicle from given time there is possibility that
from its starting to end location. Also, it is those AGV may come in contact
important that the route which is selected is with each other causing accident.
feasible or not such as the route must be free • Congestion: Congestion is nothing
from congestion conflict-free etc. last the but an accumulation of AGVs at a
route must be optimal. Therefore, there is a specific point. It arises at a location
high requirement to finding appropriate where there are insufficient
solutions regarding Scheduling and resources and the arrival of AGVs is
Routing of Automated Guided Vehicles. greater than those resources and

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 hence there is a gathering of several
vehicles.
• Livelocks: In case if there is an
intersection of paths through which
the AGVs need to travel, sometimes
AGVs may be stacked up in a path
until the next line move. Therefore,
the vertical line of intersection is
shown in the figure has to keep on
waiting indefinitely.
• Deadlocks: A deadlock arises when
there are multiple intersections and
AGVs have to wait for the release of
resources that are held by the others.
Fig 2: Problems faced by AGV’s
Apart from this, certain problems are
operation-dependent such as there are
various challenges while routing,
scheduling, and dispatching of the AGVs.
Although these operations are
interconnected and their problems may look
similar sometimes, they need to be
encountered and solved simultaneously.
Therefore, challenges faced in scheduling
and routing are discussed separately.
2.1 Scheduling:
Scheduling is nothing but allocating
particular task to particular AGVs for
guaranteeing conflict-free routes. Le-Ahn
et al. [1] has explained that the main goal of
most scheduling problems is to transport
loads as quickly as possible to satisfy time
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window constraints. Other includes
minimization of waiting time for load and
items that are in the queue. Scheduling can
be further divided into two essential factors
first is the predictive mechanism that plans
the start and completion time of labor
operations and the next is the reactive
mechanism that monitors the progress of
the schedule and deals with events such as
failures breakdowns etc. A system is
employed in such cases of scheduling for
determining which and where the AGVs are
deployed for performing a task. If each task
is identified prior to planning then the
problem can be encountered beforehand. In
an off-line scheduling case, all available
task is scheduled at once and in on-line all
these task decisions are made over time
according to the situation arises. Apart from
this, there is Real-time scheduling in which
decisions are made for a short term and
actions are taken at the real time.
2.1.2 Scheduling algorithm
For large number of pick and drop jobs the
scheduling of AGVs becomes difficult. In
such cases, scheduling and outing problems
should be analysed and studied separately
from each other. However, research on
AGVs scheduling is limited.
2.2 Routing:
In the case of AGVs routing is usually
called vehicle routing and is the process of
determining one or more paths or sequences
of those paths for vehicles. The main
problem consists basically of determining
the number of routes for vehicles and
shortening that distance by taking into
account each constraint such as the task
assigned to that particular vehicle and its
load-carrying capacity. In recent years
Routing algorithms are employed to solve
this problem and they can be further
classified as static dynamic vehicle
routings. In static routing, the input data is
constant for the execution of the path. The
path is converted into nodes, for example, i
and j an algorithm help to solve or to find
the shortest distance from i to j. On another
hand, in dynamic routing, the routing
decisions are made in real-time which
means the input can be changed during the
execution and therefore multiple paths
between i and j can be chosen. The
drawback of static routing over dynamic
routing is that all data prior calculation of
route does not change and hence Collison
accounting is often missed which leads to
severe effect on system performance and
therefore in this case additional system is to
be employed for collision avoidance.
2.2.1 Routing Algorithm
The routing algorithms are classified into
three categories. General path topology.
Path optimization. Specific path topology.
• Routing Algorithms for General
Path Topology: This algorithm
focuses on figuring out the
appropriate routes for vehicles
without consideration of the
topology path networks. It further
consists of static and dynamic
routing algorithm and is usually
found that the dynamic routing
algorithm is faster and more
efficient than static routing
algorithm in order to find the correct
path.
• Routing Algorithm for Path
Optimization: This algorithm for
path optimization is more effective
than the general path topology. In
this type of algorithm, problems
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which are to be optimized are
modelled with the aid of integer
programming.
• Routing Algorithm for Specific
Path Topology: Algorithms for
routing AGVs for specific path
topology, It further consist of single
loop and multiple loop algorithms
and mesh algorithms.
3. Solution Strategies
The main aim behind proper scheduling and
routing is to minimize cost and to ensure
hassle-free operations between the
operations so the further process is carried
out efficiently. Several types of research
and studies have been carried out to find
solutions for the effective performance of
AGVs and various routing algorithm has
also been implemented. Rajotia et al. [2]
has added a time window concept to the
vehicle routing problem to represent the
arrival and departure time at which AGVs
will be occupied. Further to solve problems
of congestion and collision of AGVs
conflict-free routes have been developed.
Broadbent et al. [3] were the first to
introduce the concept of the collision-free
and shortest route AGV routing methodby
using the most popular algorithm used for
calculating the shortest path and time
required with the help of Dijkstra’s
algorithm, it is the algorithm that uses the
matrix generation method which helps in
describing the occupying time of the
vehicles. Maza et al. [4] has given a
estimated solution for robust predictive
method of routing without any conflicts.
Möhring et al. [5] proposed another
algorithm for the problem of routing
without any conflicts at the time of
computing routes. Klimm et al. [6] has
presented an efficient algorithm to
encounter with the problem of
accumulation and derouting of vehicles and
hence avoiding the potential deadlocks
which are caused and finding respective
solutions by using a static approach.
Vivaldini et al. [7] has created a algorithm
which is based on the famous Dijkstra’s
algorithm to find the shortest path and used
the concept of time window to solve traffic
jams and generating a optimized conflict
free routes. Zaremba et al. [8], Veeravali et
al. [9] have given an analytical based
model for scheduling of AGVs. Hartman et
al. [10] in the paper has given a generalised
model for scheduling various material
handling equipment’s so as to reduce the
average lateness of a job and average setup
time which could be minimized and
therefore several conflict free routes can be
obtained.
4. Conclusion
This paper has elaborately discussed about
the role of scheduling and routing of
AGV’s and its functionality. Though these
functionalities are been interconnected in
nature but are not intrinsic and it has been
quite evident. Challenges faced during
performing tasks by AGVs were discussed
and it is important to classify the problems
of the operation as scheduling and routing
and should be solved as such. These
encountered problems can be solved by
using proper resource and scheduling
planning or through algorithms that are
previously formulated by researchers in
their previous studies and hence some work
of previous researches has been presented.
Thus, managing AGV’s is a very complex
task and needs to look after with proper
planning in the scientific sphere.
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