AGV (Automated Guided Vehicles) is also known as unmanned vehicle, automatic guided vehicle, laser-guided vehicle. It refers to a vehicle equipped with automatic navigation devices such as electromagnetic or optical devices, capable of traveling along a prescribed navigation path, with safety protection and various load shifting functions.
It is a vehicle that does not require a driver in industrial applications and is powered by a rechargeable battery. Generally, its travel path and behavior can be controlled by computer, or electromagnetic path-following system is used to set up its travel path, and the electromagnetic path is stuck to the floor, and the unmanned truck relies on the information brought by the electromagnetic path to move and act.
Features of AGVs
Another characteristic of AGV is good flexibility, high degree of automation and high level of intelligence, the driving path of AGV can be changed flexibly according to the requirements of storage space and production process. AGV is generally equipped with a loading and unloading mechanism, which can automatically interface with other logistics equipment to automate the whole process of loading and unloading of goods and materials. In addition, AGV also has the characteristics of clean production, AGV relies on its own battery to provide power, no noise, no pollution during the operation, can be applied in many places requiring a clean working environment.
Classification of AGVs
1、Electromagnetic induction guided AGV
Electromagnetic induction guidance is generally on the ground, along the pre-set driving path buried wire, when the high-frequency current flow through the wire, the wire around the electromagnetic field, AGV on the left and right symmetrical installation of two electromagnetic sensors, they receive the electromagnetic signal strength differences can reflect the AGV deviation from the path of the degree of automatic control system to control the vehicle steering, continuous dynamic The continuous dynamic closed-loop control ensures the stable automatic tracking of the set path by the AGV. This electromagnetic induction-guided navigation method is used in most commercial AGVS, especially for medium and large-sized AGVs.
2、Laser-guided AGV
This type of AGV is equipped with a rotatable laser scanner, and laser positioning markers with highly reflective reflective plates are installed on the walls or pillars along the running path. The AGV relies on the laser scanner to emit laser beams and then accepts the laser beams reflected back from the surrounding positioning markers, and the on-board computer calculates the current position of the vehicle and the direction of movement, and corrects the orientation by comparing it with the built-in digital map to achieve automatic handling.
The application of this type of AGV is becoming more and more common. And based on the same guidance principle, if the laser scanner is replaced with an infrared emitter or ultrasonic emitter, the laser-guided AGV can become an infrared-guided AGV and an ultrasonic-guided AGV.
What are the characteristics and classification of AGVs? How is it different from AMR
3、Visual-guided AGV
Vision-guided AGV is a rapidly developing and mature AGV, which is equipped with CCD cameras and sensors, and has an image database of the environment around the path the AGV wants to travel set in the on-board computer. during the travel of the AGV, the camera dynamically acquires the image information of the environment around the vehicle and compares it with the image database, so as to determine the current position and make decisions on the next travel.
This kind of AGV has the best guiding flexibility in theory because it does not require any physical path to be set artificially, and with the rapid development of computer image acquisition, storage and processing technology, this kind of AGV is becoming more and more practical.
In addition, there are various forms of AGVs such as ferromagnetic gyroscopic inertia-guided AGVs and optically guided AGVs.
AMR is the upgraded version of AGV
AMR (Autonomous Mobile Robot) means "Autonomous Mobile Robot". AMR can use software to map the inside of a factory or import drawings of factory buildings in advance for navigation. This function is equivalent to a car with GPS and a set of pre-installed maps. Once the car sets the address of people's homes and jobs, it generates the most convenient route based on the location on the map.
AMR is similar to AGV, in simple terms, AMR is an upgraded version of AGV, but it does not require the use of external infrastructure such as magnetic strips, rails, QR codes, etc. AMR can be subdivided into two categories: one based on robot cluster management and one based on order picking optimization.
