AMR Fleet Traffic Coordination Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
A patent landscape analysis of AMR and robot fleet traffic coordination: filing trends, leading assignees, technology composition and white space, based on 2,734 records filed 2015-2026.
Filing growth = 2021 (251 records) → 2024 (107); 2024 is the last year we treat as complete. Top-5 share = the 5 largest assignees ÷ all 2,734 records in scope (CR5), not the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
AMR fleet traffic coordination sits at the intersection of motion control, task scheduling and collision avoidance for groups of autonomous mobile robots and automated guided vehicles operating in a shared space. The scope here covers 2,734 published records filed between 2015 and 2026 that claim traffic, route or path management across a robot fleet, or conflict, collision and deadlock avoidance among multiple mobile robots. Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the 2025 and 2026 figures in this dataset are still filling in and should be read as a floor, not a ceiling.
The records draw from six major receiving offices, led by the United States, with meaningful volume also filed at the EPO, WIPO under the PCT, and the patent offices of Japan, South Korea and Germany. That spread reflects a technology that is filed for global deployment rather than a single home market.
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 2,734-record dataset: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings rose from 179 in 2017 to a peak of 251 in 2021, then declined to 107 by 2024 — a complete three-year window showing a -57% move. 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete due to publication lag and should not be read as a continued decline.
Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in. Growth rates on this page therefore end at 2024; running them to the last bar would understate the field.
IPC subclass composition
G05D (control of non-electric variables) appears on 61.6% of the 2,734 records, confirming that most claims are written as control-system logic rather than mechanical design. B25J (manipulators & robots, 24.5%) and G06Q (business/commerce data processing, 10.2%) are the next-heaviest classes, with navigation (G01C), regulating systems (G05B), material handling (B65G), cleaning appliances (A47L) and digital data processing (G06F) each present on a meaningful minority of records. Since records can carry multiple classes, these shares sum to more than 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 2,734 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Mobile Robots & AMRs: AMR Fleet Traffic Coordination Patent Landscape with Eureka
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Try EurekaRepresentative filing and most-cited prior art
Systems and Methods for an Autonomous Mobile Robot Fleet Coordination (US20250278100A1, Robust AI)
A fleet controller for autonomous mobile robots that ingests camera image data from the robots, builds a global scene graph of the environment to identify navigable regions, determines a workflow of tasks to be carried out by one or more robots in cooperation with a human worker, and computes routing information — including a nominal route — for the robots to execute that workflow.Filed 2025-09-04. Notable for combining scene-graph environment mapping with human-in-the-loop workflow assignment ahead of route computation, rather than treating routing as a standalone module.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US4674048A | Multiple robot control system using grid coordinate system for tracking and completing travel over a mapped r… | 489 |
| 2 | US20140365258A1 | Job management system for a fleet of autonomous mobile robots | 475 |
| 3 | US5051906A | Mobile robot navigation employing retroreflective ceiling features | 473 |
| 4 | US20170225336A1 | Building-Integrated Mobile Robot | 448 |
| 5 | US5942869A | Mobile robot control device | 406 |
| 6 | US20090152391A1 | Multibody aircrane | 400 |
| 7 | US5652489A | Mobile robot control system | 400 |
| 8 | US6076025A | Mobile robot steering method and control device | 385 |
| 9 | US6496754B2 | Mobile robot and course adjusting method thereof | 382 |
| 10 | US20100049365A1 | Method and System for Multi-Mode Coverage For An Autonomous Robot | 325 |
Citation counts favour older filings simply because they have had longer to accumulate citations inside this corpus — treat them as a signal of influence on the field, not as a ranking of current relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the data means for a filing or freedom-to-operate decision
Four read-outs from the assignee ranking, filing trend and class composition that matter more for strategy than the raw counts alone.
The field is fragmented, not locked up
The leading assignee holds 139 records out of 2,734, and the ranked top 5 combine for only 17.5% of all filings in scope. That leaves a long tail of the other 95 ranked companies plus unranked filers holding the bulk of the volume — a structure where a new entrant is competing against dense prior art, not against a small number of blocking portfolios.
Peak activity has passed its complete-data high
Filing volume rose steadily through the late 2010s, peaked at 251 records in 2021, then fell to 107 by 2024 — the last year with complete publication coverage. That is a real pullback in a fully counted window, though 2025-2026 figures are still understated by publication lag and should not be read as confirmation the field is cooling further.
Traffic logic is claimed as control software, not hardware
Nearly two-thirds of records carry G05D (control of non-electric variables), versus 24.5% for B25J manipulator claims. Most contested claim space is in scheduling, routing and conflict-resolution logic rather than in the physical robot design — which is where freedom-to-operate review should concentrate first.
Filing follows deployment markets
The United States carries the largest single share of filings, with Europe, the PCT route, Japan, South Korea and Germany each contributing substantial volume behind it. That spread indicates fleet-coordination IP is being built for multi-jurisdiction commercial deployment rather than defended in one home market.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to mobile robots & amrs: amr fleet traffic coordination patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| Toyota Motor Corporation | Toyota Industries Corporation | 11 |
| Toyota Motor Corporation | Toyota Motor Corporation | 10 |
| iRobot Corporation | WON CHIKYUNG | 4 |
| iRobot Corporation | SHAMLIAN STEVEN V | 4 |
| iRobot Corporation | ROSENSTEIN MICHAEL T | 4 |
| iRobot Corporation | PACK ROBERT TODD | 4 |
| iRobot Corporation | HALLORAN MICHAEL | 4 |
| iRobot Corporation | FARLOW TIMOTHY S | 4 |
Co-assignee pairing is limited to 10 identified pairs in this dataset, with the strongest links appearing between affiliated entities within the same corporate group — consistent with internal group filing practice rather than cross-company joint development.
Where to take this landscape
The ranking, trend and class charts on this page are a starting point for scoping a freedom-to-operate review or a whitespace filing strategy — the next step is usually to narrow by claim language and jurisdiction.
Run a freedom-to-operate check on a specific route
Use Patsnap Eureka to pull the full claim text behind the G05D and B25J classes against a specific deployment design before committing engineering resources.
Open EurekaTrack the fragmented leader set
Monitor the ranked assignees below the top 5 for new filings — with no dominant blocker, a shift in filing pace from a mid-tier player is an early signal worth catching.
Set up monitoringCommon questions about this landscape
The leading assignee in this dataset holds 139 of the 2,734 records in scope, with the ranked top 5 combining for 478 records, or 17.5% of the total. That is a meaningful lead but far from dominance: the remaining 95 companies in the 100-company ranking, plus unranked filers, hold the large majority of filings. A company evaluating this space should expect to clear prior art from a broad set of filers rather than from one or two blocking portfolios.
Filing volume rose through the late 2010s and peaked at 251 records in 2021, then fell to 107 by 2024 in the last window with complete publication data — a real decline of 57% over that three-year span. Figures for 2025 and 2026 look lower still, but that is expected: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so recent years are always undercounted at the time of measurement. The honest read is that filing has cooled off its 2021 peak, not that the field has stalled.
Control-systems claims under IPC class G05D appear on 61.6% of the 2,734 records, making scheduling, routing and conflict-resolution logic the densest area of prior art. Manipulator and robot-body claims (B25J) follow at 24.5%, with navigation (G01C), general control and regulating systems (G05B), and business-process data handling (G06Q) each present on a smaller but still substantial share of records. Because records often carry multiple IPC classes, these figures overlap rather than sum to a whole.
The class composition shows heavy claim density in core control logic (G05D) and manipulator design (B25J), but comparatively lighter coverage in areas like cleaning-appliance integration (A47L, 6.8%) and general digital data processing (G06F, 5.5%). Combined with a fragmented assignee base — no single company holds more than a small fraction of filings — that suggests room for claims that combine fleet coordination with a specific vertical use case rather than a general routing algorithm. Any serious search should still be run against the full claim text, not just IPC shares.
The United States receives the largest single share of filings in this dataset at 1,062 records, followed by the European Patent Office at 460 and the WIPO PCT route at 206. Japan, South Korea and Germany each carry substantial volume behind those three, indicating that companies in this space are filing for deployment across major robotics and logistics markets rather than concentrating on one home jurisdiction. A multi-jurisdiction filing strategy is the norm here, not the exception.
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Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.
Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company’s registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.