Warehouse Robotics Glossary: AMR, AGV & More

AGV (Automated Guided Vehicle): An older category of warehouse robot that follows a fixed path — magnetic tape, wires embedded in the floor, or painted lines. Cheap and reliable for a static layout, but expensive to reconfigure if your operation changes. Most new deployments today use AMRs instead, which navigate dynamically without fixed infrastructure.
AMR (Autonomous Mobile Robot): A robot that navigates using onboard sensors (LiDAR, cameras) and software-based mapping rather than a fixed physical path — it can reroute around obstacles and adapt to layout changes without reprogramming infrastructure. Locus Robotics' fulfillment robots and Dexory's inventory-scanning robot are both AMRs.
ANSI/RIA R15.08: The American National Standards Institute / Robotic Industries Association safety standard for industrial mobile robots — covering how AMRs must detect and respond to people and obstacles. See our full safety standards explainer for how it relates to ISO 3691-4.
ATEX / Zone 1: ATEX is the EU framework (and Zone 1/2 the classification system used in the U.S. and internationally) for equipment rated to operate in explosive atmospheres — the kind found in refineries and chemical plants. Most commercial inspection and security robots, including Boston Dynamics Spot, are not ATEX/Zone 1 certified; deployments in classified areas typically pair the robot with a gas-detection payload that triggers an automatic retreat instead.

BVLOS (Beyond Visual Line of Sight): FAA terminology for drone operations where the pilot cannot see the aircraft directly. Outdoor security drones like Asylon's Guardian require an FAA BVLOS waiver to fly autonomous routes; indoor warehouse inventory drones like Corvus One don't need one at all, since FAA rules generally don't apply to aircraft operated entirely indoors.

CFATS (Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards): A DHS regulatory program requiring high-risk chemical facilities to maintain documented security measures, including perimeter monitoring. Robotic patrol platforms like Ghost Robotics Vision 60 and Asylon are often deployed specifically to generate the time-stamped, GPS-tracked documentation these programs require.
Cycle Counting: Counting a subset of inventory locations on a rolling schedule (rather than shutting down for one giant annual count) so the whole facility gets counted several times a year. Autonomous robots turn this into a daily or continuous process instead of a periodic one — see our guide on what cycle counting actually is.

Digital Twin: A continuously updated virtual model of your facility's physical inventory, built from robot scan data — so instead of a WMS record that's a best guess between counts, you have a live representation of what's actually on the shelf, down to photo evidence per location.

FMS (Fleet Management System): The software layer that coordinates multiple robots working the same facility — assigning tasks, routing around each other, and reporting fleet-wide health and productivity. Locus Robotics' LocusHub and Boston Dynamics' Orbit are both examples.

ISO 3691-4: The international safety standard specifically for driverless industrial trucks (including AMRs), covering hazard identification, safe speeds, and required safety functions. Often referenced alongside ANSI/RIA R15.08 — see the full explainer for how the two standards relate.

MHE (Material Handling Equipment): Forklifts, pallet jacks, scissor lifts, and other equipment used to move and access inventory. A major hidden cost of manual cycle counting is MHE diversion — pulling a forklift and driver off productive work to give a counter access to high rack positions.

PI Event (Physical Inventory Event): A full, wall-to-wall count of every item in a facility, typically done once or twice a year, often requiring outside auditors and a partial or full operational shutdown. Autonomous robots that scan daily are explicitly designed to reduce or eliminate the need for these.
Pick Density: How many order picks happen per unit of floor area or per hour — a core productivity metric fulfillment AMRs like Locus Robotics are evaluated against, since bringing inventory to the picker (rather than walking the picker to the inventory) is what drives the improvement.

RaaS (Robotics-as-a-Service): A subscription pricing model — a monthly fee covers the hardware, software, maintenance, and support, instead of a large upfront capital purchase. It's the dominant commercial model across nearly every platform Actel deploys, and it's why most facilities can start a deployment without a capital appropriation process.
RFID (Radio-Frequency Identification): A tagging technology that lets a reader identify an item wirelessly without a direct line of sight. Powerful for high-velocity tagged SKUs, but it requires tagging every item and installing reader infrastructure — see our inventory drones vs. RFID comparison for when each approach fits.
RSOC (Robotic Security Operations Center): A human-staffed monitoring center that verifies alerts from autonomous security robots and drones before escalating to on-site staff — Asylon's platform routes every mission through one, and it's also where FAA-certified remote pilots fly outdoor drone missions on the customer's behalf.
RTLS (Real-Time Location System): Technology that tracks the real-time location of assets or people within a facility, typically using RFID, Bluetooth, or UWB. A close cousin of the inventory-accuracy problem robotics solves, and part of Actel President Dan Tarpey's original background before robotics.

SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping): The core technique that lets an autonomous robot build a map of its environment and track its own position within it at the same time, using onboard sensors rather than GPS or fixed infrastructure. It's what lets Dexory and Corvus One navigate a warehouse with zero markers, beacons, or Wi-Fi.
SKU (Stock Keeping Unit): A unique identifier for a distinct, trackable product or item variant in inventory — the unit that WMS records, and that robots scan and reconcile against.

Teach-and-Repeat: A programming method where an operator manually drives or walks a robot through a route once, tagging actions along the way, and the robot repeats that exact route autonomously afterward. Boston Dynamics calls this "Autowalk" on Spot.

Uptime SLA: A contractual guarantee of what percentage of time a robot or system will be operational, distinct from a response-time SLA (which only promises how fast someone will show up after a failure). When evaluating a RaaS contract, an uptime guarantee with a stated remedy matters more than a response-time promise — see our buyer's guide contract checklist.

VDA5050: An open, vendor-neutral communication standard that lets AMRs and AGVs from different manufacturers be coordinated by a single fleet management system. Relevant for any facility running mixed-vendor robot fleets, since it's the emerging way to avoid being locked into one vendor's proprietary orchestration software.

WCS (Warehouse Control System): The software layer that directly controls physical material-handling equipment (conveyors, sortation, robots) in real time — sitting between the WES/WMS and the hardware on the floor.
WES (Warehouse Execution System): Software that orchestrates work across people, robots, and equipment in real time, sitting between the WMS (which manages inventory records) and the WCS (which controls hardware) — increasingly where fleet-level robot task assignment happens.
WMS (Warehouse Management System): The system of record for what inventory exists and where — SAP, Manhattan, Blue Yonder, Oracle, and similar platforms. Every robotics deployment Actel manages integrates directly with your existing WMS rather than replacing it.