The MCU-based Vehicle Management Unit (VMU) and MPU-based Companion Computer (NavQPlus) operate independently and are not dependent on each other from a boot perspective. The VMU is responsible for the real-time control of the steering, acceleration, speed, and it can use sensor inputs to make independent decisions. The VMU can also get additional data from the companion computer, which is running the autonomous mapping and navigation functions to determine the path it needs to take to complete its tasks. Both functions could be integrated in the NavQPlus, which has Arm® Cortex®-A applications core and a real-time Cortex-M core, but we decided to go with a modular architecture.

This is possible but not typically used in logistics warehouse applications today. Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) are controlled using robot fleet management applications to program the tasks that need to be performed by each individual AMR. There are situations where robots do need to communicate, for example, in a setting like a hospital if you have an autonomous cleaning robot and a delivery robot in the same corridor and they need to pass each other. There needs to be decision-making criteria to decide which robot is going to give way. If there was a spill and the cleaning robot is working to clean the floor, then the delivery robot may need to wait. However, if there is no spill, the delivery robot may have priority and the cleaning robot would give way.

The NavQPlus companion computer is based on the i.MX 8MPlus quad-core processor. This device has support for direct camera inputs for vision sensing processing or it can connect to Ethernet or USB-based cameras. It uses Linux as the operating system and robot operating system (ROS2) to implement the middleware needed to perform mapping and navigation functions. For more details, see the NavQPlus webpage.