Automated guided vehicles (AGVs) are extensively used in many applications such as intelligent transportation, logistics, and industrial factories. In this paper, we address the path planning problem for an AGV system (i.e. a team of identical AGVs) with logic and time constraints using Petri nets. We propose a method to model an AGV system and its static environment by timed Petri nets. Combining the structural characteristics of Petri nets and integer linear programming technique, a path planning method is developed to ensure that all task regions are visited by AGVs in time and forbidden regions are always avoided. Finally, simulation studies are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed path planning methodology.
Mobile robots are extensively used to complete repetitive operations in industrial areas such as intelligent transportation, logistics, and manufacturing systems. This paper addresses the path planning problem of multi-type robot systems with time windows based on timed colored Petri nets. The tasks to be completed are divided into three different types: common, exclusive and collaborative. An analytical approach to plan a group of different types of mobile robots is developed to ensure that some specific robots will visit task regions within given time windows. First, a multi-type robot system and its environment are modeled by a timed colored Petri net. Then, some methods are developed to convert the task requirements that contain logic constraints and time windows into linear constraints. Based on integer linear programming techniques, a planning approach is proposed to minimize the total cost (i.e., total travel distance) of the system. Finally, simulation studies are investigated to show the effectiveness of the developed approach.
This paper researches the fixed-time leader-following consensus problem for nonlinear multi-agent systems (MASs) affected by unknown disturbances under the jointly connected graph. In order to achieve control goal, this paper designs a fixed-time consensus protocol, which can offset the unknown disturbances and the nonlinear item under the jointly connected graph, simultaneously. In this paper, the states of multiple followers can converge to the state of the leader within a fixed time regardless of the initial conditions rather than just converging to a small neighborhood near the leader state. Finally, a simulation example is given to illustrate the theoretical result.
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