Automatic Pallet Engagment by a Vision Guided Forklift

This paper presents a vision-guided control method called mobile camera-space manipulation (MCSM) that enables a robotic forklift vehicle to engage pallets based on a pallet’s actual current location by using feedback from vision sensors that are part of the robotic forklift. MCSM is capable of high precision mobile manipulation control without relying on strict camera calibration. The paper contains development of the method as well as experimental results with a forklift prototype in actual pallet engagement tasks. The technology could be added to AGV (automatically guided vehicle) systems enabling them to engage arbitrarily located pallets. It also could be added to standard forklifts as an operator assist capability.