DEVELOPMENT AND TESTING OF AUTONOMOUS MOBILE ROBOT FOR MATERIAL HANDLING

Abstract

The adoption of autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) for material handling has witnessed significant growth in various industries, including manufacturing, healthcare, and the service sector. To stay competitive in this era of automation, businesses are increasingly transitioning from human labor to AMRs for efficient transportation and material handling. This project involves developing and testing AMR that utilizes Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) and Nav2 (Navigation2) for precise navigation and Computer Vision (CV) for enhanced material handling capabilities. In the first phase, design and development of the mobile robot is done. The second phase involves incorporating SLAM and Nav2 for autonomous mobility of the robot, enabling it to navigate complex environments with accuracy and efficiency and finally, in the third phase, OpenCV is integrated into the autonomous mobile robot for ArUco tag detection for material handling operations. Therefore, in these three phases, we have developed and tested an AMR for material handling purpose using ROS2, SLAM, Nav2 and OpenCV. The process used in this project can be a clear guideline on completing similar projects related to autonomous mobile robots using ROS2 in various areas ranging from manufacturing industries to service industries.