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Assembly Line
AGV and AMR: What is the Actual Difference?
In logistics centers and production halls, there are always a lot of pallets, crates, mesh boxes, racks and numerous other objects that must be transported. This task can be accomplished by forklifts with human operators behind the steering wheel. Increasingly, driverless transport systems (DTS) are being used to move goods autonomously from A to B.
These driverless transport vehicles include Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) and Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs). Although they both accomplish the same tasks, these abbreviations should not be used synonymously: the two vehicle types are different and each of them has specific characteristics.
The A in AGV stands for Automated, while the A in AMR stands for Autonomous: a small difference with major significance. As the name suggests, AMRs operate autonomously, for instance by evading obstacles that suddenly block their path. On the other hand, AGVs travel on fixed routes and can only accomplish pre-defined tasks by following automated instructions. In contrast, AMRs make their own decisions when a situation requires.