Development of an Intuitive Autonomous Ground Robot for Indoor Delivery Applications

Abstract

Efficient and reliable parcel delivery services are always desired in different sectors such as hospitals, offices, industries and households. One promising solution to meet, this need is the application of Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) capable of navigating complex indoor environments to deliver packages and goods. Generally, AMRs are used for the last-mile delivery of parcels. The end users of such robots have different skill sets, and the robot must have a simple user interface to ensure easy usability. This paper presents an AMR with an intuitive Graphic User Interface (GUI) and aesthetic design. It is enough for the end user to define the goal locations on the resulting map shown on the robot screen. The AMR will autonomously navigate to the given goal location. Besides, the effectiveness of sensor fusion and a comparative study of various combinations of sensor fusion are also described in this paper. In addition, the application of LiDAR odometry and its performance is also analyzed in this paper. The primary objective of this study is to identify an approach that improves the AMR’s tracking accuracy and makes it suitable for dynamic work environments. This paper describes the development of an AMR for last-mile delivery purposes, and its proof of concept is evaluated on the fabricated prototype. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2025.