Precision Positioning of Automatically Guided Vehicles (Paperback)

To meet customer product demands with short lead- times and minimal tooling costs, it is necessary to have Flexible Manufacturing System with the required degree of material handling flexibility. Automatically Guided Vehicle (AGV) system operating at high level of intelligence is needed to achieve this flexibility. This book presents the current research trends in the area followed by development process of a prototype of a novel AGV system. The AGVs are controlled by Global Vision Feedback through a camera mounted on the ceiling of the manufacturing cell, which provides the images of top view of the cell in real-time. Since the paths are not hard coded, this approach allows change in the AGV paths dynamically, thus making the AGV system truly flexible.