• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.68-74
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• 2003

Modem automated manufacturing processes employ automated guided vehicles(AGVs) for material handling, which serve several machining centers(MCs) in a factory. Optimal scheduling of AGVs can significantly help to increase the efficiency of the manufacturing process by minimizing the idle time of MCs waiting for the raw materials. In this paper, we will analyse the requirements for an optimal schedule and then provide a mathematical framework for an efficient schedule of material delivery by an AGV. With this model, the optimal number of MCs to be utilized will also be determined. Finally, the material delivery schedule employing multiple journeys to the MCs by the AGV will be carried out. Through rigorous analysis and simulation experiments, we shall show that such a delivery strategy will optimize the overall performance.

• Journal of the Korea Society for Simulation
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.21-38
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• 2000

A fuzzy dispatching algorithm with adaptable control scheme is proposed for more flexible and adaptable operation of AGV system. The basic idea of the algorithm is prioritization of all move requests based on the fuzzy urgency. The fuzzy urgency is measured by the fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making method, utilizing the relevant information such as incoming and outgoing buffer status, elapsed time of move request, and AGV traveling distance. At every dispatching decision point, the algorithm prioritizes all move requests based on the fuzzy urgency. The performance of the proposed algorithm is compared with several dispatching algorithms in terms of system throughput in a hypothetical job shop environment. Simulation experiments are carried out varying the level of criticality ratio of AGVs , the numbers of AGVs, and the buffer capacities. The rule presented in this study appears to be more effective for dispatching AGVs than the other rules.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.238-248
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• 2000

Facilities are getting more automated and informative in modern manufacturing systems, especially in semiconductor and LCD plants. These systems keep a great deal of such information on its current and near-future status as the arrival time and job completion time of their parts. This paper presents an efficient policy for AGV and part routing using information on the future status of the system where AGVs are playing a central role for material handling. Efficient control of AGVs is very important because AGV systems often become the bottleneck and limit the total production capacity of a very expensive plant. The cell controller records the future events chronologically in Next Event Schedule, and uses this list to determine to which place the AGVs and parts to be sent.

• Journal of the Korea Society for Simulation
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.41-52
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• 1997

It is essential to construct an efficient material flow system for the successful introduction of automated manufacturing systems. Automated Guided Vehicle System (AGVS) plays a significant role more and more in modern manufacturing environments, because of the flexibility and the precision they offer. However, as the size and the complexity of systems increase, the problems of dispatching, routing and scheduling of AGVs become complicated due to their independent and asynchronous demands. In this paper, we review relevant papers, and provide a new and more efficient method for dispatching AGV, named MEVTT (Minimum Empty Vehicle Travel Time) and demonstrate its performance and efficiency using simulation.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.21 no.46
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• pp.19-32
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• 1998

This paper addresses the processing route of parts and economic design in flexible manufacturing systems (FMSs) employing AGVs for Transport. Parts are processed through several workstations according to operation sequences. The machine of each workstation can do multiple operation functions. The operation stage of a part can be processed in several workstations, which are non-identical in functional performance. The objective of this paper is to determine the processing route of parts, number of machines at each workstation, number of vehicles. The model is assumed that the operation stage of parts can be processed at the only one among several available workstations. Parts are transported by automated guided vehicle system(AGVS). The decision criteria is to minimize the sum of processing cost, travel cost, operating cost. A model formulation is represented. A solution algorithm is suggested by using mathematical programming and simulation technique, and a numerical example is shown.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.121-139
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• 1992

AGVS(Automated Guided Vehicle Systems) in material handling have been used widely since late 1970s. Implementation of an AGVS generally requires substantial study to optimize the design and performance of guide-paths. Traditional mathematical approaches have been used with limited success to analyze AGVS. These approaches, however, do not provide a practical tool for guide-path designers. This paper presents a new approach based on rules in designing and assessing AGV guide-paths to improve the design of a closed-loop layout. A framework for the integrated approach is proposed, problem solving procedures are explained, and a case study is reported to demonstrate the framework. Deletion of seldom used guide-paths, and addition of bypasses to solve the congestion problem, are conducted interactively and iteratively through simulation experiments. To visualize the results, a graphic control program is developed and integrated with the AutoMod/AutoGram simulation package.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.369-376
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• 2005

In recent years, AGVs(Automated Guided Vehicles) have received growing attention as a subsystem of the integrated container operating system which enables unmanned control. improvement of job reliability, accuracy and productivity. Therefore, a number of works have been done to enhance the performance AGVs. In this paper. job deployment and a dynamic routing control system composed of supervisor, traffic controller. motion controller and routing table are discussed. A simple job deployment scheme and an efficient dynamic routing algorithm incorporating with the deadlock prediction and avoidance algorithm are investigated.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.25-43
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• 2005

In modern automated container terminals, automated guided vehicle (AGV) systems are considered a viable option for the horizontal tansportation of containers between the stacking yard and the quayside cranes. AGVs in a container terminal move rather freely and do not follow fixed guide paths. For an efficient operation of such AGVs, however, a sophisticated traffic management system is required. Although the flexible routing scheme allows us to find the shortest possible routes for each of the AGVs, it may incur many coincidental encounters and path intersections of the AGVs, leading to collisions or deadlocks. However, the computational cost of perfect prediction and avoidance of deadlocks is prohibitively expensive for a real time application. In this paper, we propose a traffic control method that predicts and avoids some simple, but at the same time the most frequently occurring, cases of deadlocks between two AGVs. More complicated deadlock situations are not predicted ahead of time but detected and resolved after they occur. Our method is computationally cheap and readily applicable to real time applications. The efficiency and effectiveness of our proposed methods have been validated by simulation.

• Journal of Korea Society of Industrial Information Systems
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.13-21
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• 2018

AGVS (Automated Guided Vehicle System) is a core technology of logistics automation which automatically moves specific objects or goods within a certain work space. Conventional AGVS generally requires the in-door localization system and each AGV equips expensive sensors such as laser, magnetic, inertial sensors for the route recognition and automatic navigation. thus the high installation cost is inevitable and there are many restrictions on route(path) modification or expansion. To address this issue, in this paper, we propose a cost-effective and scalable AGV based on a light-weight pattern recognition technique. The proposed pattern recognition technology not only enables autonomous driving by recognizing the route(path), but also provides a technique for figuring out the loc ation of AGV itself by recognizing the simple patterns(bar-code like) installed on the route. This significantly reduces the cost of implementing AGVS as well as benefiting from route modification and expansion. In order to verify the effectiveness of the proposed technique, we first implement a pattern recognition algorithm on a light-weight MCU(Micro Control Unit), and then verify the results by implementing an MCU_controlled AGV prototype.

• IE interfaces
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2002

Tandem AGV system is obtained by partitioning all workstations into multiple zones assigning a single vehicle to each zone. In this paper, we propose an analytical model to design a tandem AGV system with multi-load AGVs. Using simulation, the performance of the proposed model is shown by comparing a conventional multi-load AGV system.