When it comes to warehousing and logistics robots, they belong to the category of industrial robots. I believe that most people in the industry will immediately think of the popular "star" AGV in warehousing in recent years.
In fact, warehousing and logistics robots include the above main types of robots. Most people fail to distinguish the characteristics of each type of robot, especially when it comes to AGV and AMR. Many people don’t even know what the latter stands for. Meaning, not to mention the difference between it and AGV.
AGV is the abbreviation of Automated Guided Vehicle, which means "automatic guided transport vehicle".
AMR is the abbreviation of Automated Mobile Robot, which means "autonomous mobile robot".
The difference between AGV and AMR
Both AGV and AMR can realize material transportation, but their similarities only stop there. The difference between AMR and AGV is that the former itself has powerful computing power, and it can perceive the surrounding environment through sensors and make corresponding decisions; and then The latter is just a large actuator, and every move depends on the scheduling of the central control system.
01. Differences in path planning
The on-board intelligence of AGV is extremely low, and it can only obey simple programming instructions. According to the path planning model of the working environment of the AGV car, it is generally divided into two types: one is the global path planning based on the model, and all the information of the working environment is known, which is also called static or offline path planning. The other is sensor-based local path planning, where all or part of the operating environment information is unknown, also known as dynamic or online path planning.
Generally speaking, AGV cannot perform complex, cumbersome, and intelligent instructions, and it is prone to interruptions when updating equipment, and once it encounters obstacles during transportation, it can only stop operating.
AMR has higher sensitivity and can intelligently screen out the most effective way to reach the destination, easily bypass obstacles, automatically cross-layer transportation, complete work efficiently and safely, and optimize productivity.
To put it simply, AMR can use software to draw maps inside the factory or import factory building drawings in advance to realize navigation. It's the equivalent of a car with GPS and a set of preloaded maps. When the car sets the target address, it can generate the most convenient route based on the location on the map.
02. Differences in application scenarios
The most widespread application of all mobile robots is in automating transportation tasks.
Among them, the AGV is relatively simple in this application implementation. It is limited to follow a factory fixed route fixed on the ground. During the entire service life of the AGV, it can only perform the same transportation tasks. If the route needs to be changed, it needs to be reset. Planning and ground layout, resulting in production interruption and other benefit effects.
AMRs can change tasks with simple software adjustments to meet changing environments, production requirements and priority settings for task execution. Once a new task is formulated, employees do not need to spend extra time coordinating robots, but instead focus more on high value-added work, and the entire application process will be more flexible and flexible.
03. Differences in environmental requirements
Industry insiders once pointed out that the basic conditions of China's warehouses are generally poor, with serious ground subsidence, unevenness, and even cracks. Such a warehouse can't use AGV at all, but AMR can because it has good obstacle-crossing ability and adaptability.
This out-of-the-box performance feature of AMRs gives companies complete control over the robot and its capabilities. As business needs evolve, workers can quickly redeploy robots, enabling production optimization in highly dynamic environments without being limited to a rigid AGV infrastructure.
04. Differences in commissioning ratio
Autonomous mobile robots are definitely superior to AGVs in terms of flexibility, cost-effectiveness, return on investment, and productivity optimization. You must think that AMR needs to invest huge costs. On the contrary, the initial cost of AMR is very low, and its process optimization is fast, which can provide Very fast return on investment (typically less than six months) without costly production disruption during deployment. With the continuous growth of business volume, it is also possible to expand AMR applications at a very low additional cost.
Are AMRs replacing AGVs?
AMR is gradually replacing AGV as a new trend of storage robots?
According to the latest mobile robot market sales report released by Interact Analysis, the global shipments of AMRs exceeded 20,000 in 2018, twice the sales volume in 2017. The regions included in it (Americas, EMEA, Asia Pacific) have all experienced huge growth, with Asia Pacific especially China being one of the countries driving the largest growth.
On the other hand, the fate of AGV seems quite "complicated" in this report. Although the global AGV profit revenue (still accounting for the largest share of the market) grew at a rate of about 10% in 2018, it is worth noting that the American AGV The market is actually down slightly year-over-year.