Assistive Autonomous Ground Vehicles in Smart Grid

Autonomous Ground Vehicles (AGVs) are nominated for a wide range of applications in smart cities. This paper studies and simulates the potential field algorithm used for path planning of such AGVs to extend there application for automation and control of smart grids. Different sensors are studied and implemented in the algorithm to help the AGV navigate from an initial position to a goal by avoiding any obstacles in its path. A solution is analyzed and simulated for the problem of AGVs getting trapped in local minima. A new application for the AGVs as assistance in smart grid is also discussed. A real implementation of the project has also been done at the KTH Smart Mobility Lab, Sweden using the Nexus robots and the algorithm was implemented successfully. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).