2022 Latin American Robotics Symposium (LARS), 2022 Brazilian Symposium on Robotics (SBR), and 2022 Workshop on Robotics
in Education (WRE) | 978-1-6654-6280-8/22/$31.00 ©2022 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/LARS/SBR/WRE56824.2022.9995776
Comparison between Line-Followers and Free Movement Robots in
Tasks Execution in a Simulated Environment
1st Igor Pardal Latini
Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná (UTFPR)
Av. Sete de Setembro, 3165
Curitiba, Parana, Brazil
3rd Marco Teixeira
Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná (UTFPR)
Av. Sete de Setembro, 3165
Curitiba, Parana, Brazil
5th Lucia Valeria Ramos de Arruda
Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná (UTFPR)
Av. Sete de Setembro, 3165
Curitiba, Parana, Brazil
Abstract—In Industry 4.0, there is a constant pursuit for
efficiency and productivity, and, searching to achieve this, the
usage of multiple robots to attend to several tasks simultaneously
is usual. Nowadays, there is plenty of robotic architectures,
having their navigation system based on numerous different
sensors. This work compares the line-follower robots, having a
determined path, with the free-moving robots that navigate based
on odometry, for load collecting and delivery tasks in specific
locations. For this, four simulated experiments are run in two
scenes, with two and four tasks, respectively. The comparison is
based on a difference in robot quantity, with more line-followers
than free-moving ones, aiming to collect values such as idle time,
task wait time, and the number of tasks done for each machine.
The results show advantages in using less but more intelligent
robots with free movement. Such robots are not bound to one
unique task and can use their idle time to roam and complete
other processes. However, the task wait time is a concerning
issue, as too few robots for overcharged situations can increase
execution delays.
Index Terms—Robotics, simulation, line-follower robot, free
movement robot, fuzzy controller
I. INTRODUCTION
The crescent modernization of factories and the introduction
of new logistic technologies induce a replacement of the hu-
man labor, once indispensable for a company’s manufacturing
processes, with robots [1]. Using machines to do the heavy
Universidade Tecnologica Federal do Parana (UTFPR), Av. Sete de Setem-
bro, 3165, Curitiba, Parana, Brazil
Automation and Advanced Control System Laboratory (LASCA)
Graduate Program in Electrical and Computer Engineering (CPGEI)
Wilson Eduardo Barioni eduardo.barioni@agvs.com.br
Igor Pardal Latini igorlatini@gmail.com
978-1-6654-6280-8/22/$31.00 ©2022 IEEE
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2nd Wilson Eduardo Barioni
Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná (UTFPR)
Av. Sete de Setembro, 3165
Curitiba, Parana, Brazil
4th Flavio Neves-Jr
Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná (UTFPR)
Av. Sete de Setembro, 3165
Curitiba, Parana, Brazil
lifting increases productivity and, in the long term, reduces
costs, with the so-called Industry 4.0 [2].
In this contexte, many factories use AGVs (Automated
Guided Vehicles) not only for automatizing line production but
also for transportation of the by-products inside their facilities.
This automation also occurs in cargo stock, with warehouses
using autonomous equipment to transport goods and carry out
other logistical processes like inventory management [3].
Several issues must be addressed for the complete automa-
tion of entire distribution centers, including the number of
robots to be used. Those centers cannot achieve the wished
efficiency and productivity by using only one robot. Using
multiple autonomous machines makes it possible to attend to
numerous tasks simultaneously, accelerating the processes.
In real applications, several tasks are ready to be executed
at different times, which brings the question of how many
robots a determined process needs. By assigning one robot
to each task, we guarantee that the tasks run when they are
ready, considering no planning failures and the time needed to
complete the tasks. With this approach, the downside is the idle
time of each machine since they are assigned to that specific
task. Until the task is ready, that robot will stand idle, losing
efficiency and therefore representing a cost to the company.
In contrast, it is possible to use fewer robots attending to
multiple tasks. With no explicit path, the robot waits to receive
a call from the task and promptly goes to the location to
execute it. In this way, fewer machines would be able to keep
the same performance as the one task - one machine approach
but with less idle time per equipment.
For this, it is necessary to consider the navigation ap-
proaches for load-carrying robots. Such approaches consider
robots with fixed paths, also called line-followers, and ones
with free movement. The first category could implement one of
many technologies. It can use an infrared ray sensor to follow a
line made with tape on the ground or use a magnetic sensor to
follow a magnetic line [4]. The free movement robots are more
intelligent and use odometry from sensors like accelerometers,
gyroscopes, inertial measurement units, LIDAR, among others,
to locate themselves [5].
This work compares the usage of robots applying a line-
follower method to complete tasks with fewer robots utilizing
a free movement strategy, regarding their idle times, the tasks’
wait times, and how many tasks each machine was able to
complete, using a simulated environment.
The structure of this work is in such a way that Section
II deals with the used methodology and concepts, while
Section III contains aspects related to the development and
the simulation. In sequence, Section IV presents the results
obtained, concluding in Section V that also contains the future
work.
II. M ETHODOLOGY
The comparison is carried out in a simulated environment
built into V-REP (Virtual Robot Experimentation Platform)
[6]. All codes are developed using Python language [7] and
ROS (Robot Operating System) framework [8].
A. Criteria
The comparison between line-followers and free-movement
robots is based on their capabilities in completing tasks. Thus,
the criteria used for the comparison are idle time per robot,
maximum and average wait time per task, and the number of
tasks completed. The idle time is considered any time that
the robot is not doing a task nor in route to start one. The
wait time for the tasks is defined as the time passed between
that task being ready to be executed and one robot starting it.
Other data, like traveled distance and route time for the free-
movement robots are also collected. These values, associated
with their respective experiments, can be seen in Section IV.
B. Navigation and Control
The free-movement robot utilizes two PID controllers [10]
to navigate around the scene. The first one controls linear
speed and the other the angular speed. PID controllers are
mathematically given by
Z t
de(t)
u(t) = K p e(t) + Ki e(t)dt + Kd (1)
0 dt
Where u(t) is the control output, e(t) is the error between
the controlled variable and its set-point, K p is the proportional
gain, Ki is the integral gain and Kd is the derivative gain.
The linear speed error is calculated as the linear distance
between the current robot position in the scene and the target
point. The linear distance is the euclidean distance given by
Equation 2.
q III. D EVELOPMENT
d = (x2 − x1 )2 + (y2 − y1 )2 (2)
Where d is the linear distance, (x2 , y2 ) is the target point,
and (x1 , y1 ) is the robot’s current point.
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For the angular controller, the error is the difference between
the current angle of the robot and its desired angle facing the
target point. This can be achieved by Equation 3.
θ = atan2(y2 − y1 , x2 − x1 ) (3)
Where θ is the angular error and atan2 is an arc-tangent
function that takes the quadrants of (x, y) into consideration.
(x2 , y2 ) is the target point, and (x1 , y1 ) the robot position.
An avoid obstacles Fuzzy Logic controller is designed and
switched from the PID when necessary. Fuzzy Logic allows
representing uncertainty and vagueness. A fuzzy controller
uses linguistic variables and consists of three steps: fuzzify
the inputs by associating them with the membership functions,
apply the previously specified rules to calculate the outputs,
and de-fuzzify those outputs to get the final values [10].
A TITO (Two Inputs and Two Outputs) fuzzy controller
is applied for obstacle avoidance control. The first input
is the distance to the closest obstacle, encompassing four
sets: “VeryClose”, “Close”, “Far” and “VeryFar”. The second
input is the angle to closest obstacle, encompassing five sets:
“VeryRight”, “Right”, “Center”, “Left” and “VeryLeft”. Figure
1 shows the membership functions for both sets.
Fig. 1: Membership functions for distance and for angle to the
closest obstacle (fuzzy controller inputs)
For the outputs, the first one is the angular velocity, encom-
passing five sets: “VeryClock”, “Clock”, “Center”, “Anticlock”
and “VeryAnticlock”. This output corresponds to the correc-
tion in the angular movement that should be applied so that the
robot can avoid the detected obstacle. Finally, the last output
is the linear velocity, encompassing three sets: “VerySlow”,
“Slow” and “Normal”. The idea is, the closer the robot is to
the obstacle, slower it will get, so it will have time to avoid
it. The membership functions of both outputs are shown in
Figure 2.
The rules generally make the robot motion slower the closest
it is to the obstacle but also increase the angular velocity so
that the robot can easily do the deviant maneuver. Likewise, it
boosts the angular velocity if the obstacle is closer to the center
of the robot from an angular standpoint. To avoid collision
between two robots, the rule for a center obstacle is to “go
left”.
A. Tasks
The tasks comprehended collecting the load, going to
another location, and then delivering it, corresponding to a
Fig. 2: Membership functions for angular and linear velocity
(fuzzy controller outputs)
standard transportation procedure. Each task has its defined
starting location, final location, and a fixed timer for when to
be ready to be executed.
The tasks are only representative since the loads’ physical
characteristics and the load and unload difficulties are beyond
this study’s scope. For this reason, every task consists of
these three steps: first, the robot waits a fixed amount of
time to simulate collecting the load, then it goes to that
task’s previously determined destination, and finally remains
for another specified amount of time corresponding to the
load delivery operation. However, this definition has some
differences according to the type of robot that completes it.
The line-followers robots always start in the fixed initial
position of their assigned tasks. Since they have a line to
follow, their path is known from the beginning. With this,
every robot needs to return to its starting position after
delivering the load; thus, the tasks for these kinds of robots
also consider this. For line-follower robots, the tasks have an
extra step of coming back to the initial position.
In contrast, the free movement robots do not have path
constraints and are also not limited to any particular task. For
this reason, they do not need to return to their starting points.
However, they also have an extra step, but in the beginning,
since they have to reach the start point of the next task.
A scheduler must be created [11] to assign the tasks to free
movement robots. It checks the tasks, and, every time one
is ready, the scheduler puts it in a list and assigns it to the
idle robot closest to the starting point of such activity. This
assignment guarantees that only one robot performs a task at
a time, and if all robots are busy, the scheduler will not miss
that call, keeping the activity in the list until one turns idle.
B. Robot
The robot used in this work for line-follower and free-
movement navigation approaches is the same. It is a simple
one since it is an example. Any robot could be used if utilized
in conjunction with ROS. The robot can be seen in Figure 3.
The robot consists of a cylindrical fairing, wheels with a
0.1m radius and 0.25m distance between the wheels. It also
has a LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) scanner on its top,
used for obstacle perception. This scanner is a Hokuyo URG
04LX UG01 [12], modified to use a 180 degrees arc range
and increment of approximately 0.006 radians (0.34 degrees)
with each beam, resulting in 512 measurements per message
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Fig. 3: Robot used for line-follower and free-movement navi-
gation approaches
received in ROS. The maximum speed for each machine is
limited to 1m/s, keeping the two types of robots at the same
levels.
This study considers no-error odometry allowing the robots
to know their location in the scene. In a real scenario, the
sensors would have inaccurate measurements, and the robot’s
positions could be unknown.
To effectively apply the values of linear and angular ve-
locities calculated by the PID or the Fuzzy controllers, it is
essential to consider the robot’s kinematics model. The robot
used here in has a differential system composed of two fixed
wheels, in which the difference in speed between them causes
the movement [13]. The angular and linear velocities to be
applied to the wheels are computed using Equations 4 and 5,
.
ωL vx
vright = − + (4)
2r r
ωL vx
vle f t =
+ (5)
2r r
Where vright is the velocity applied to the right wheel and
vle f t to the left wheel, ω is the angular velocity and vx the
linear velocity, both received through ROS topics. Finally, r
is the wheel radius and L the distance between the wheels.
C. Timers
Using time measurements as criteria for comparison turned
out to be problematic, especially considering the synchro-
nism between the simulation and the Python scripts. Heavy
processing and rendering can slow the machine down when
the simulation is running, making the time count wrong, as
everything is slower than it should be. However, the scripts
were using real-time from the ROS function, which made the
loss of synchronism a real problem, with tasks being ready
while the robots were still on their way to completing them.
The use of simulation time instead avoids such a problem.
The simulation time, as is shown in Figure 4, is an internal
variable in V-REP that is incremented by a value in each loop
of the simulation [14]. That means that, as the simulation
slows down, this value will also slow its growth down, keeping
up. Therefore, while the values obtained as times do not
correspond to seconds in any way, they can be used as a
suitable means of keeping track of time since it is constant
between all parts, the simulation, and the scripts. For lack of a
better name, this unit of time will be referenced as “simulation
time” or simply “st” in this work.
Fig. 4: Simulation time loop [14]
D. Scenes
The simulated environment has two scenes created using V-
REP (Virtual Robot Experimentation Platform). The first one
is a simple scene to serve more as a “proof of concept”, while
the second scene is more complex and offers more challenges
for the robots, being a light simulation of a possible space
in a warehouse. The first scene is shown in Figure 5, while
the second one is present in Figure 6. Although both scenes
illustrate the line-following robots, the scenes with the free
movement ones are the same, with the robot starting in the
center.
The second one, built in a 15m x 15m platform, represents a
more realistic situation, with more tasks and possible obstacles
in the path described by the cupboards. In this scene, there are
four tasks: Task 1 is the right one, Task 2 is the top one, Task
3 is on the left, and, finally, Task 4 is on the bottom side.
These nomenclatures will be used in Section III-E.
The paths, marked as black tape in both scenes, are only
used by the line-followers robots. The free movement ones
do not have any restrictions in their movements, but, in the
second scene, it is necessary to do some obstacle dodging.
E. Experiments
In total, four experiments were run, one with the first scene
and three with the second scene. As seen in Section III-C,
the values presented are in “st”, and do not correspond to real
seconds.
For the first experiment, the values used by the tasks to
be ready are presented in Table I. The “Initial time” can be
interpreted as if the time count already starts at this value,
and “Time to be ready” is the target count in which the task
will be ready to be completed. As soon as the task is ready,
the timer goes to zero and another counting is initiated. This
means that the initial timer, as the name says, only counts the
first call of the task. This experimentran for 830st.

TABLE I: Task times for the first experiment

Task Initial time (st) Time to be ready (st)

Task 1 0 100
Task 2 50 100

Table II presents the values for the second experiment using

the second scene. In this experiment, there are four tasks, two
more than in the previous analysis. Two of those tasks are also
longer, taking more time to complete. This experiment ran for
Fig. 5: First scene 700st.
TABLE II: Task times for the second experiment

Task Initial time (st) Time to be ready (st)

Task 1 320 340
Task 2 0 100
Task 3 0 240
Task 4 0 150

The third experiment, which also uses the second scene,

was made to stress the free movement robot, reducing the time
necessary for the tasks to be ready. The values are present in
Fig. 6: Second scene Table III. This experiment also ran for 700st.

TABLE III: Task times for the third experiment

The first scene is a 10m x 10m platform with no obstacles.
The two tasks correspond to the two lines, as seen in the figure. Task Initial time (st) Time to be ready (st)
The one on the right is Task 1, while the one on the left is Task 1 165 175
Task 2. The robots are positioned in the initial location, ready Task 2 0 60
Task 3 0 130
to start collecting the load when their respective tasks turn Task 4 30 60
ready.

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 In the fourth and last experiment, another free movement next ones, maintain the same format as the previous ones but
robot was added, seeking to decrease the wait time for the are in a more concise format, using abbreviations to facilitate
tasks. The initial location of both is right at the center, with the view.
robot one dislocated 3 meters up and robot two 3 meters down. Here, we can see the same pattern of the first experiment.
This experiment used the same time values as experiment Even after adding 275.75st equivalent to the route time (re-
three, seen in Table III, and was also run for 700st. sulting in 365.7st), it represents only 22.9% of the idle time
of the line-followers, indicating that there is too much free
IV. R ESULTS
time for them. Regarding the task times, the relatively high
Table IV contains the results for experiment 1, having the difference between the maximum wait time and the average
idle time, the number of tasks completed and the traveled one can be explained by the many different paths the free
distance for each robot, as well as a sum for easy comparison movement robot can take to each task, which sometimes can
between all line-followers and the one free movement. Table be closer than others. Also, the situation of a task being ready
V contains the maximum and average wait time for each while the robot is still finishing another task is much more
task and the average time to complete the task. To make the present here. However, no process is unattended; hence the
tables easier to read, the line-follower robots are abbreviated number of completed tasks is the same.
to “Line”, while the free movement ones are abbreviated to
“Free”. TABLE VI: Results for the second experiment
TABLE IV: Results for the first experiment Line 1 Line 2 Line 3 Line 4 Total Free
Idle(st) 368.15 405.9 366.45 453.25 1593.75 86.95
Line 1 Line 2 Total Line Free Comp. 2 6 2 4 14 14
Idle time (st) 458.65 409.35 868 97.85 Dist.(m) 81.9 69.87 46.28 46.67 243.72 215.62
Tasks completed 7 8 15 15
Travelled distance (m) 88.08 93.13 181.21 229.53

TABLE VII: Task related results for the second experiment

The route time corresponds to the time the free robot
spent going to the initial location of each task. This time is Task 1 Task 2 Task 3 Task 4
independently counted, and its value is equal to 314.4st. The Max. wait (st) 53.7 56.8 69.54 52.35
Avg. wait (st) 35.85 23.92 43.64 34.16
addition of the route and the idle times resulted in 412.25st, Avg. comp. Line (st) 165.92 49.02 113.75 48.95
which is still only 47.5% of the total time for the line- Avg. comp. Free (st) 33.05 24.87 24.85 24.87
followers. This means that one free movement robot could, in
this situation, quickly do the job of two line-followers robots
For experiment three, the free movement robots are under
and would be idle nearly half the time. The total number of
stress by decreasing the time necessary for each task to be
completed tasks is the same, indicating that no process was
ready, pushing it almost to the limit. The results can be seen
left unattended or not terminated.
in Table VIII, with the task related result in Table IX. Since
TABLE V: Task related results for the first experiment this is the same scene as experiment two, the values for average
completion time are similar, thus they are removed from the
Task 1 Task 2 table.
Max. wait time (st) 20.25 20.25 The route time in this experiment is 293.25st, which, added
Avg. wait time (st) 20.19 19.15
Avg. completion time Line (st) 48.76 48.7 to the idle time for the free movement robot, results in 303.85.
Avg. completion time Free (st) 27.19 27.21 Here, the free movement equipment is clearly insufficient to
attend to all tasks, having done only 15 compared to the 28
done with the line-followers. The idle time presented, 10.6st,
Concerning the tasks, it is possible to see that the maximum
is for the first task to be up. After that, there was no more idle
wait time and the average one are very close, indicating that
time for this robot. This shows the importance of looking at
this value comes from the robot going to the initial position
both the idle time and the number of tasks completed.
of the tasks. The difference between the completion times is
Comparing Table IX with Table VII, the high wait values
explained in Section III-A, but is related to the time to go back
show that the single robot is unable to attend to the four tasks
to the initial position on the line-followers. It is important to
using these new, lower refresh times.
note that the completion time for the line-follower is relative
to each robot, as they can only complete one task. TABLE VIII: Results for the third experiment
It is important to note that, since the line-follower robots
are limited to each task, they have no wait time, and this value Line 1 Line 2 Line 3 Line 4 Total Free
only applies to the free movement equipment. Idle(st) 37.5 169.6 192.15 150.9 550.15 10.6
Comp. 3 10 4 11 28 15
The results for the second experiment are shown in Table Dist.(m) 163.61 127.05 103.79 130.48 524.93 241.17
VI, reflecting the increase in complexity. Table VII presents
the results from a task standpoint. Those tables, and also the

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 TABLE IX: Task related results for the third experiment and other approximations. In a real-world setting, the behavior
observed could differ from the one presented here since several
Task 1 Task 2 Task 3 Task 4
Max. wait (st) 229.9 303.75 291.2 354.05
variables are not considered in a simulation.
Avg. wait (st) 124.1 166.46 218.63 202.64
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The result analysis points to the advantage of using fewer,
more intelligent robots to do tasks instead of just assigning a
line-follower robot to each process. By having free-movement
robots, it is possible to take advantage of their idle time to
move them to other places and keep them busy, maximizing
the investment to acquire it and do the necessary infrastructure
changes.
However, it is important to keep the wait time of each task
in mind. An inherent delay is always associated with the free
movement robot since it must drive through the initial place
of each process. Also, the time each task takes to become
available is critical, as it can overload the free movement
robots, as seen in experiment three.
For future works, other types of navigation systems will
be compared, such as robots running with only a Fuzzy
controller, without PID. Also, the complexity of the scenes
can be increased, adding more robots, more tasks, dynamic
obstacles, etc. Moreover, the scheduler can consider aspects
other than only distance. Finally, the power supply can be also
analyzed, simulating the consumption and creating a region
and a wait time for recharging.
As a final consideration, this work has used a simulated
environment, including measurements from free-error sensors

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