MATERIALS HANDLING VEHICLE PATH VALIDATION AND DYNAMIC PATH MODIFICATION

A materials handling vehicle comprises a path validation tool, drive unit, steering unit, localization module, and a navigation module that cooperate to navigate the vehicle along a travel path in a warehouse. The tool comprises warehouse layout data, a proposed travel path and vehicle kinematics as well as a dynamic exterior boundary and a dynamic clearance boundary which approximate the physical vehicle periphery and an enlarged boundary respectively. The tool executes path validation logic to determine vehicle pose along the proposed travel path; determine whether the dynamic clearance boundary is likely to intersect obstacles represented in the layout data based on the determined vehicle pose at candidate positions along the proposed travel path and build a list of potentially intersecting candidates; determine a degree of potential impingement at the candidate positions by referring to the list of candidates, dynamic exterior boundary and obstacle data; and modify the proposed travel path to mitigate the degree of potential impingement. The vehicle further comprises a tugger and one or mor trailers coupled to the tugger. The dynamic vehicle boundary approximates a physical periphery of the tugger, and a potentially intersecting obstacle is a trailer of the one or more trailers coupled to the tugger. Alternatively, the dynamic vehicle boundary approximates a physical periphery of a trailer of the one or more trailers, and a potentially intersecting obstacle is another trailer of the one or more trailers.