These vehicles are developing beyond just electric trucks or trollies used to transport parts and increasingly vehicle assemblies around manufacturing plants. As Veronica Pascual Boé explains they are changing from something that might once have been described as an automated guided vehicle (AGV) to what is now termed an autonomous mobile robot (AMR).

Pascual Boé is global head of AMR business for ABB Robotics. Until a little over a year ago she was CEO of Asti Mobile Robotics, a Spanish company that had developed its own range of AMRs and which was then acquired by the Swiss-based multinational. All of Asti’s former products and technology are now part of the ABB portfolio.

The difference between the two concepts, Pascual Boé continues, is not one of physical configuration or capabilities – they are still driverless wheeled devices that transport loads from one point to another in a production environment. “The essential distinguishing capabilities between the two are concerned with navigation and the ability to respond to unstructured environments,” she states. In turn those attributes form the basis of the autonomy that is the key feature of AMR technology.