Business: 45-938: Marketing Project Course on Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs): Start

Various terms are used for this product - try them all!

• Automated Guided Vehicle or Automatic Guided Vehicle (AGV)
• Autonomous Ground Vehicle or Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV - seem to be more military applications)
• Self Guided Vehicle (SGV)
• Laser Guided Vehicles (LGV) and Automated Guided Carts (AGC) (from article in Wikipedia - good summary)  
• Possibly also:  driverless cars, "material handling equipment" or “robotic industrial trucks” used for logistics

"More ground robots to serve alongside Soldiers soon" - "Army to integrate ground robots into forces" - "iRobot receives $9.8 million order for Small Unmanned Ground Vehicles (SUGV)"

Expenditures - Estimated total funding for unmanned systems of the U.S. Department of Defense from FY 2014 to 2018, by branch (in million U.S. dollars.)  See "Ground" data.

• Savant Automation provides a good background on AGV's - see "Basics" and FAQs

• IBISWorld report on  Automated Guided Vehicle Manufacturing Industry in the US. (You may have to search for the report by name within the database. Focus on US only.)

• World Service Robots annual report (latest we have is 2014) has much data on AGVs throughout.  (Use Ctrl-F and enter AGV to find them.)

• The Robotics Business Review (log in first with username:  rbrcmu and pw:  carnegie1) has excellent coverage of all business aspects of robotics - search for "AGV" or related terms (see vocabulary box on this page) and also companies by name, i.e. Seegrid.  See especially AGV references in their report "Robotics and the New Supply Chain 2015-2020."

• Frost & Sullivan's report "The Future of Mobile Robots" defines a UGV as: "A land-based vehicle that operate without any human intervention and perform tasks that are considered to be inconvenient, manual, dangerous, or impossible for humans. It can be used for both military and civilian purposes, and can work independently through mobile platforms and sensors for navigation.”   Uses:  Warehouse, Factory, Airport, Seaport, Defense. To retrieve this report, search in this database for "future of mobile robots" in quotes, select the "mega trends" report, and then search within the report for UGV, and also AGV for similar coverage.

• BCC Research's "Drone Technology and Global Markets" (see chapter 4, "Drone Market by Type") covers these also as UGV's and sizes the global market – uses include: Defense, Logistics & Warehousing, Healthcare, Field Operations, and Entertainment.  To retrieve this report, search in this database for the "drone technology and global markets" in quotes, select the report, and click on chapter 4.

Below: recent articles in the Business Source Premier database - from trade publications - on the topic "automated guided vehicle systems."  These provide news on competitors and market conditions.  You can further limit the search in the side bar, or change keywords.  If you need more of the same, you could also try ABI/INFORM or LexisNexis.