Data processing: vehicles – navigation – and relative location – Vehicle control – guidance – operation – or indication – Automatic route guidance vehicle
Reexamination Certificate
2003-03-21
2004-12-14
Jeanglaude, Gertrude A. (Department: 3661)
Data processing: vehicles, navigation, and relative location
Vehicle control, guidance, operation, or indication
Automatic route guidance vehicle
C701S201000, C701S206000, C701S211000, C701S212000, C340S988000, C340S990000, C703S006000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06832139
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to material handling systems, and more particularly to a program and method for designing and configuring a material handling system.
One type of material handling system that is found in a variety of factories, plants, and other environments is the automatic guided vehicle system. Automatic guided vehicles, or AGVs, are driverless vehicles that automatically carry or pull various loads of materials from one point to another point within an environment. These vehicles generally come in two different types: wire-guided and wireless AGVs. The wire-guided AGVs include sensors that allow the vehicles to follow energized wires buried in the floor of a facility. The wireless AGVs guide themselves without the use of wires. Some wireless AGVs occasionally detect update markers, which may be laser targets, magnets embedded in the floor, transponders, optical landmarks, or other devices which allow the vehicles to occasionally update their position within the facility.
AGV systems can also be broadly divided into another two categories: centrally controlled systems and distributed control systems. In a centrally-controlled AGV system, the movement of each AGV is controlled by a central controller. The central controller issues commands to the vehicles, such as telling them where to turn, what paths to follow, and what actions to take to avoid colliding with other vehicles. Distributed control AGV systems, in contrast, utilize AGVs that are capable of making many of their own decisions, such as where to turn, what paths to follow, and what actions are necessary to avoid colliding with other vehicles. These decisions are carried out by each individual vehicle, rather than a central controller that dictates their actions. Of course, some AGV systems can also be classified as hybrids of centralized and distributed control systems. Such systems include centralization of certain aspects and de-centralization of other aspects.
The installation and set-up of AGV systems in the past—whether they have been centralized, de-centralized, wire, or wireless systems—has often been a time-consuming and labor-intensive task. Virtually all AGV systems require a path to be laid out; traffic control logic or instructions to be determined; navigational information, such as the location of update markers, to be gathered and stored; and integration of the results of all of these tasks to be performed such that the system will function properly. In the past, these separate tasks have often been carried out manually, sometimes with different people working on different tasks or even different people working on the same task. This can lead to coordination problems where one person's work may not be properly communicated to another person whose work is affected by the first person's work. In such situations, design work may have to be re-done.
Besides these coordination difficulties, there is also a great deal of information that each person must know in order to accomplish the various design and installation tasks. For example, the people carrying out the system design tasks must know many details about the particular vehicles that are going to be installed. These details include the length and width of the vehicles, their turning radius, the length of any carts that will be towed behind the vehicles, the location of the vehicle's guidepoint, the minimum stopping distance of a fully loaded vehicle, and other information. If someone does not know these details, they may design a system that causes the vehicle to bump into obstacles, that has too sharp of turns for the vehicles to follow, that requires the vehicles to stop faster than they are able, that does not cause the vehicles to precisely travel to the desired locations, or that otherwise causes the system to improperly function. Installing new AGV systems, or modifying existing systems, has therefore required extensive training of the personnel assigned to carry out such tasks. This results in increased costs to both the AGV system designer, who must spend money training these people, and the AGV system customers, who rarely have such trained personnel on staff and therefore must contract with the system designer whenever they desire to modify their AGV system.
The prior methods of AGV installation have also complicated the marketing aspects of selling AGV systems. When selling and installing AGV systems, the AGV installer often has a number of different people in contact with the customer at various levels. These may include one or more sales people, project engineers, design engineers, and/or technicians. If all these people do not sufficiently know all of the details about the intended system design, it is possible for a number of miscommunications to occur. Such miscommunications may involve misunderstanding the customer's material handling requirements, making promises to the customer about the characteristics of the system that may not be possible to implement, or other miscommunications. The result of such miscommunications is often an increase in the costs of the design and installation process.
Another disadvantage of prior AGV system installation methods has been the uncertainty, until actual installation and testing, that the proposed system will actually meet the specified requirements. Customers of AGV systems often have timing requirements in which specified amounts material must be moved to different locations within a given amount of time. In complex AGV systems with large numbers of paths and large numbers of vehicles, it is often difficult to accurately predict how quickly material will get moved. If the initially installed system does not meet all of the specified requirements, changes may have to be made whose costs could have been otherwise mitigated if they had been part of the original system design. The advantages of a system designing process that mitigates these and other disadvantages can therefore be seen.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, the present invention provides a method for installing AGV systems that simplifies the design and installation process. According to one of its various aspects, the present invention provides a central database of AGV and system information that minimizes the amount of training required for the system designers and installers. Pathways, traffic control, navigational information, and other system information are input into a computer in a simple, user-friendly manner, such as by way of a graphical interface. The computer is programmed to automatically perform certain design tasks, as well as to validate that the system design will function properly. The computer may be further programmed to simulate the movement of AGVs and material in a given environment to determine whether system requirements will be met or not.
According to a first embodiment of the present invention, a method for configuring a material handling system is provided. The method includes providing a computer having a visual display and inputting information into the computer that causes the computer to visually display at least a first path for a material handling vehicle. The method further includes inputting information into the computer to cause it to visually display at least one symbol representing at least one action location located at a position specified by the user. Further information is input into the computer that at least partially specifies what action will take place when the material handling vehicle reaches the action location. The computer is then used to create a computer file that contains the location of the path, the location of the action location, and the information that specifies what action will take place when the material handling vehicle reaches the action location. The computer file is transferred to a vehicle controller that is adapted to read the file and utilize the information contained therein to control the movement of the vehicle along the path and to control the action undertaken when the vehicle reaches the
Johnson James
Koff Garry
Werner Matt
Jeanglaude Gertrude A.
Rapistan Systems Advertising Corp.
Van Dyke Gardner, Linn & Burkhart, LLP
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