Shared human-agv industrial environments: Overview of the literature evolution and future research

Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) continue to play a significant role in many manufacturing systems. More recently, the traditional AGV-human scenario, where workers and vehicles were managed in a separate way, has changed according to the Industry 4.0 revolution, in which robots and people coexist by sharing common tasks and closed movements in the same workplace without barriers. In this context, the safety of the human worker is one of the main concerns and a prerequisite for a successful collaboration between human and robots. Although the binomial man-robot has been frequently addressed over the last years, it is also true that most of the research on AGVs fleet design is focused on the sizing of the system by a performance point of view, without a complete acknowledgement of the interactions and of the mutual interferences among operators and AGVs. Indeed, the introduction of human-AGV shared environments (such as a mobile fulfilment system designed to follow the picker among the shelves and to collaborate with him) poses new challenges in the design and implementation of AGV systems. Thousands of articles about AGVs are present in the main publications’ databases in the time range from the 90s to the present day. The literature is very extensive and over the years has ranged between different areas of interest, riding the trail of new technologies and development trends. This work aims to show an overview of the evolution of the literature focused on AGV systems, emphasizing the latest research trends and the emerging gaps, also including the ones related to the shared presence of humans and AGVs within the same environment, which can affect the overall performances and the implementation phases.