Analysis of Navigation Algorithms for a Fleet of Mobile Robots by Means of Digital Twins

Abstract

Abstract Industrial maintenance is undergoing a process of digitalization and automation through the use of Industry 4.0 technologies. An example is the employment of digital twins which allow virtualizing assets such as a fleet of Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR) . In this paper, we analyze two local navigation algorithms for AMRs navigation in a digitized environment: Dynamic Window Approximation (DWA) and Time Elastic Band (TEB) . For this purpose, a digital twin is implemented in the ROS ecosystem. In this environment, a combined mission of a fleet of three AMRs is simulated where they navigate together in order to compare the behavior of the algorithms in dynamic industrial environments. As a result, the trajectories of each AMR that are key for production cost planning are analyzed. Finally, we introduce in this work a web server to interact with the developed digital twin facilitating its use.