Semi-autonomous vehicles with routing flexibility - functionality and application areas

摘要

Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV) systems are standard automated items in production and warehousing today. However, studies have rarely examined a more advanced form of AGVs called Semi-Autonomous Vehicles (SAVs), which have a higher sophistication of task completion and routing flexibility. This research presents SAVs in an industrial development case study. Using simulation, the route-keeping ability of SAVs with two types of guidance techniques is being studied. The results show that dual-navigation SAVs can provide the needed flexibility for routing. Using wire guidance and dead reckoning, both very well-established techniques, the SAVs' performance is, within certain limits, quite comparable to the AGVs with more advanced and expensive navigation techniques.