Minimum Time - Minimum Jerk Optimal Traffic Management for AGVs

A combined minimum time - minimum jerk traffic management system for the vehicle coordination in an automated warehouse is presented. The algorithm is organised in two steps: in the first, a simple minimum time optimisation problem is solved, in the second step, this time-optimal solution is refined into a smooth minimum jerk plan for the autonomous forklifts in order to avoid impulsive forces that may unbalance the vehicle. For the first step, we propose a novel approach based on Linear Programming, which guarantees convergence to the optimal solution starting from a feasible point, and a low computational overhead, which makes it suitable for real-time applications. The output of this step is a piecewise constant velocity profile for all the moving robots that ensures collision avoidance. The second step takes such speed profile and generates its smoothed version, which minimises the jerk while respecting the same levels of safety of the solution generated by the first step. We discuss the different solutions with simulation and experimental data.