An AMR combines lidar or cameras, wheel odometry and an inertial measurement unit to localise itself in a map it built earlier with SLAM. A planner then computes a route to the goal and a local controller steers around a pallet jack or a person that was not in the map.
Deployment means driving the robot around once to record the map, rather than installing tape or wires, so layouts can change without construction work. A fleet manager assigns jobs and keeps robots from queueing in the same aisle.
Typical jobs are moving totes between picking stations in e-commerce warehouses, carrying linen and meal trolleys in hospitals, and hauling material between machines in a workshop.
