Automated guided vehicles with a mounted serial manipulator: A literature review

Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) have become a vital part of the automation sector and a key component of a new industrial revolution that promises to: i. automate the entire manufacturing process, ii. increase productivity rates, iii. develop safer workplaces, while iv. maximising profits and reducing running costs for businesses. However, several concerns arise in the face of this very promising revolution. A major issue is how to ensure that AGVs function effectively and safely during interactions with humans. Another one concerns the ethical desirability of pervasive, continuous, and multidimensional couplings (or interactions) between humans and robots. Generally speaking, automated systems, in virtue of their vast sensing capabilities, may pose privacy challenges to their users. This is because such systems can seamlessly gather information about people' behaviors, without people's consent or awareness. To tackle the important issues abovementioned, we performed a systematic literature review [SLR] on AGVs with mounted serial manipulators. We used as an input 282 papers published in the relevant scientific literature. We analysed these papers and selected 50 papers based on certain criteria to find out trends, algorithms, performance metrics used, as well as potential ethical concerns raised by the deployment of AGVs in the industry. Our findings suggest that corporations can effectively rely on AGVs with mounted manipulators as an efficient and safe solution to production challenges.