ICP-Based Pallet Tracking for Unloading on Inclined Surfaces by Autonomous Forklifts

This paper proposes a control method for autonomous forklifts to unload pallets on inclined surfaces, enabling the fork to be withdrawn without dragging the pallets. The proposed method applies the Iterative Closest Point (ICP) algorithm to point clouds measured from the upper region of the pallet and thereby tracks the relative position and attitude angle difference between the pallet and the fork during the unloading operation in real-time. According to the tracking result, the fork is aligned parallel to the target surface. After the fork is aligned, it is possible to complete the unloading process by withdrawing the fork along the tilt, preventing any dragging of the pallet. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified through dynamic simulations and experiments using a real forklift that replicate unloading operations onto the inclined bed of a truck.