Localization of Pallets in Narrow Aisles for Unmanned Forklifts

As the application of unmanned forklifts becomes more and more widespread, logistics scenarios are constantly evolving. This paper focuses on a scenario where the pick-up of pallets perpendicular to forklift in narrow aisles is required. The narrow aisles only allow the forklift to complete the turning, performing pallet localization in front of it will be difficult. We proposes a method for localizing pallets in narrow aisles for unmanned forklifts. By installing the camera at an oblique angle above the pallet, the collected images are uploaded to the image processing system. The YOLOv5 is used to detect the pallet and extract the bounding boxes of the pallet class. Based on the bounding box coordinates, the original image is cropped. Convert the cropped image to grayscale for Canny edge detection, and then perform Hough line detection to extract the right edge of the pallet. This right edge will be compared with the reference pallet edge to obtain the relative localization between the pallet and the unmanned forklift.