Application of Deep Learning in Autonomous Mobile Robot Control: An Overview

Autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) are reshaping industries by automating tasks across diverse sectors, including logistics, healthcare, agriculture, and manufacturing. Recent advancements in deep learning (DL) have enhanced traditional control systems, empowering AMRs to process high-dimensional sensor data, improve perception, and navigate complex, dynamic environments. These techniques enable AMRs to perform a wide array of sophisticated tasks, including real-time navigation in crowded and cluttered spaces, dynamic obstacle avoidance, and accurate object recognition in settings like warehouses and agricultural fields. Beyond industrial applications, AMRs are also making significant strides in healthcare, particularly in elderly care, where they provide personalized assistance, help with mobility, and monitor health metrics through advanced perception and control mechanisms. This paper provides an overview of DL techniques in AMR systems, examining the roles of convolutional neural networks (CNNs), recurrent neural networks (RNNs), and reinforcement learning (RL). CNNs are explored for visual perception tasks such as object detection, scene understanding, and localization. RNNs are utilized for processing sequential and time series data, such as inertial measurement units or force/torque sensors, to enhance scene perception. Finally, RLs are applied to decision-making and path planning in uncertain and dynamic environments. The paper also addresses the growing role of DL in overcoming key challenges in AMR systems, including enhancing robustness to environmental variations, enabling scalability across diverse operational scenarios, and improving autonomous decision-making capabilities.