This landscape identifies 41 published records at the intersection of AGV operation and motion or path planning, filed from 2015 through the 2026 data cut-off, using a targeted search combined with an IPC filter on B25J, G05D1 and G05D. That figure reflects a scoped search string rather than every AGV-adjacent filing in general robotics, so a broader search on AGV hardware or fleet management alone would return a different, larger count. Treat 41 as the size of this specific technical slice, not of AGV patenting overall.

The ranking covers 32 companies, with the leader holding 5 of the 41 records in scope and the fifth-ranked company holding 2. The top 5 assignees together account for 39.0% of all records, and the top 10 account for 53.7% — a moderate concentration rather than a single dominant player. Over half the ranked companies hold only one or two records each, so competitive monitoring needs to extend well past the handful of most visible names.

Filings peaked in 2017 at 7 records and comparing the two most recent complete years, 2021 and 2024, volume held flat at 3 records each, a 0% change over that span. Because patent publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the years closest to the 2026 cut-off will always understate true filing activity until later publications catch up. The honest read is a plateau after an early peak, not a decline.

G05D, covering control of non-electric variables, appears on 95.1% of the 41 records in scope and is clearly the primary claim territory. G01C, covering navigation and gyroscopic sensing, follows at 24.4%, with B60L propulsion, G05B regulating systems and G06Q business-data processing each appearing on under 10% of records. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares add up to more than 100% and should be read as overlap, not as a breakdown of exclusive categories.

CN112578782A describes a dispatch-server method where the system receives a task, selects an AGV to perform it, reads vehicle-restriction information configured on the AGV map's road segments or nodes, and plans a task path using only the segments that vehicle is permitted to traverse. The practical effect is avoiding execution failures caused by routing an AGV through a restricted segment. Anyone building similar restriction-aware dispatch logic for multi-AGV fleets should review this filing's claim scope before finalising a routing-permission architecture.

The IPC composition points to B25J (manipulator integration, 4.9% of records) and G06Q (business-layer dispatch logic, 7.3%) as comparatively under-claimed relative to the dominant G05D control class. Geographically, filing activity is heavily weighted toward China with 24 of the tracked receiving-office filings, while the United States, Europe, Canada, Taiwan and the WIPO PCT route each carry far fewer — suggesting less crowded prior art outside China for equivalent claim language. Neither observation guarantees a clean filing, but both indicate where density is lowest today.