What an AMR is — and how it differs from an AGV
An autonomous mobile robot is a self-driving vehicle for the inside of your building. It carries a map of the site, works out its own route to a destination, and drives around a pallet left in the aisle instead of stopping in front of it.
That's the difference from an AGV. An automated guided vehicle follows a fixed path laid into the floor — magnetic tape, an embedded wire, reflectors or painted lines. Move the path and you re-lay the infrastructure. An AMR needs no floor infrastructure, and changing a route is a software change.
That doesn't make AGVs obsolete. For a fixed, high-throughput run that never changes — the same shuttle between the same two points, all day, every day — an AGV is often the better engineering answer. It's a simpler machine on a defined path, which usually means lower cost and fewer things to go wrong. AMRs earn their money where the routes vary and the layout moves.
We have delivered AMR systems, and we'll tell you honestly which of the two your application actually calls for.
Where AMRs earn their keep
- Repetitive internal transport — the constant shuttle between production and despatch that currently occupies a forklift and a driver
- Pallet and trolley movement — finished pallets off the line, empties back to it
- Line-side replenishment — packaging, components and consumables delivered to the machine before it runs out
- Moving WIP between cells — where product has to travel between processes that aren't next to each other
- Night-shift and between-shift transport — clearing accumulated pallets or staging the next run without staffing a driver for it
The common thread is distance, repetition and low value-add. If a person is walking or driving the same loop dozens of times a shift and adding nothing to the product on the way, that's an AMR job.
The robot is the easy part
You can buy a capable AMR from several manufacturers, and most of them work well out of the box. AMR projects don't fail on the robot — they fail on everything around it. That's the part we do.
- Charging infrastructure and power — charger locations that suit the duty cycle and the traffic pattern, and the supply, protection and cabling to feed them. Under our own licence.
- Network coverage and handover — reliable wireless along the entire route, including the dead spot behind the racking, with clean roaming between access points so the fleet doesn't lose contact mid-task
- Traffic management — how robots, forklifts and people share aisles, doorways and blind corners without a near miss every week
- Doors, lifts and roller shutters — interfacing the robot to the building so it can call a door or a lift and know when it's safe to proceed
- Pick-up and drop-off stations — designed, fabricated and installed so a pallet or trolley presents in the same place, the same way, every time. This is mechanical work, and it's usually underestimated.
- Handshaking with your existing systems — PLC interfacing so machines and robots wait for each other properly, and job calls and confirmations to your WMS or ERP
- The safety case — risk assessment, controls and documentation covering the whole installation, not just the vehicle
Electrical, controls, mechanical fabrication and machine safety are all in-house here, which means one contractor is accountable for the parts that actually decide whether an AMR project works.
Safety and compliance
An AMR is a machine operating in a space shared with people, so it needs a documented risk assessment like any other. The robot itself is comparatively well behaved — it has safety-rated scanners and it will slow down and stop for an obstruction. The real risk sits in the interactions: a forklift reversing out of an aisle, a pedestrian stepping through a doorway, a route that crosses a busy walkway at a blind corner.
That's what the assessment has to cover — routes, crossings, speed zones, exclusion areas, what happens when the robot is manually overridden, and how visitors and contractors who've never seen it before are kept clear. We carry out machine risk assessments and design the resulting controls to AS/NZS 4024 as part of the project, not as a document produced afterwards.
Is an AMR the right answer?
Sometimes not, and it's cheaper to find that out before you buy one.
For a short, fixed run between two points, a conveyor is usually cheaper to buy, cheaper to run and more reliable. It has no battery, no navigation to go wrong and no traffic to negotiate. If the material always goes from A to B and A and B aren't moving, build the conveyor.
AMRs win when the routes vary, when destinations change with the production schedule, when the layout gets reconfigured every year or two, or when the floor space simply can't take fixed conveyor and access has to stay clear. They also win where the alternative is a forklift doing low-value internal transport in an area you'd rather not have a forklift.
We're happy to scope the job and come back and say a conveyor, or a better-organised manual process, is the answer. That's a cheaper conversation than a stalled robot.
Support after handover
An AMR fleet is a production asset, and it needs the same support as one. We provide local service and spares from Montrose, preventative maintenance on the robots, chargers and stations, and breakdown support for approved customers. Because we did the electrical, the controls and the mechanical work, a fault doesn't turn into three suppliers pointing at each other.
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between an AMR and an AGV?
An AGV follows a fixed path — a magnetic strip, a wire in the floor, tape or reflectors. An AMR builds a map of your site and navigates to a destination on its own, choosing a route and driving around obstacles. AMRs suit sites where routes change or layouts move. AGVs are still the better answer for a fixed, high-volume, unchanging route, because a simpler machine on a defined path is cheaper and easier to keep running.
Do we need to change our building or Wi-Fi?
Usually something. AMRs need reliable network coverage with clean handover between access points along the whole route — patchy coverage in a corner of the warehouse is one of the most common causes of stalled robots. Floors need to be sound and reasonably level, doorways wide enough, and charging points need power in the right places. We survey all of it before quoting and do the electrical and network work ourselves.
How do AMRs handle forklifts and people?
The robot has safety scanners and will slow and stop for anything in its path. The bigger question is traffic management: shared aisles, blind corners, forklift routes and pedestrian walkways. That's handled in the risk assessment and the site design — dedicated routes where possible, speed zones, mirrors and warning devices at intersections, and rules everyone on site understands.
Can an AMR interface with our existing PLC and WMS?
Yes, and this is usually where the real engineering sits. A robot that can't be told what to move, or can't tell your systems what it has moved, doesn't save anyone anything. We handshake with existing PLCs, call and confirm jobs from a WMS or ERP, and build the pick-up and drop-off logic so machines and robots wait for each other correctly.
Who supports the system after installation?
We do. Local service from Montrose, spares held for the parts that fail, and breakdown support for approved customers — covering the robot, the charging and electrical infrastructure, the controls integration and the stations, rather than only one part of it.
Have more questions? Get in touch with our team and we'll be happy to help.