JP2002255309A - Carrying truck - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a carrying truck capable of performing efficient operation by changing the carrying speed according to an article to be carried. SOLUTION: When the article is loaded on a platform of the carrying truck, a weight sensor 11 installed in the platform measures the weight of the article. A control means 12 refers to a weight-speed table 13 based on the measured weight, acquires the speed information corresponding to the measured weight, and gives this speed information to a wheel driving mechanism 14. The wheel driving mechanism 14 rotates a front wheel 5a and a rear wheel 5b at the number of rotation corresponding to the given speed information, and allows the carrying truck to travel at the speed corresponding to the weight of the article.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a transport trolley for unmannedly transporting products and materials in a production factory for producing various products, and more particularly to a transport trolley capable of performing efficient operations. .

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in a production factory, there are products, materials, etc., products and materials used for production, and various products produced by production, and these are transported to predetermined locations as necessary. Will be done. Such transport is currently performed by an unmanned transport vehicle. Such transport vehicles are typically designed to move according to rails installed on the floor in a production plant, and move along these rails according to pre-programmed routes.

[0003]

When a conveyed object is conveyed by using a conveyer, when the conveyer is conveyed from one place to another, the conveyer will travel with the conveyed object placed on a carrier. After the transported object is lowered at a predetermined position and the next transported object is received, the transport vehicle travels with the carrier empty. However, the above-described conventional transport vehicle always travels at a constant speed regardless of whether or not the transported object is on the carrier. Therefore, even when traveling in the sky after transporting the transported object to the target point, or when transporting a lightweight transportable object such as an empty case, the vehicle travels at a low speed as in the case of transporting a normal transported object. Therefore, there is a problem that the cycle time of the transport vehicle becomes longer, and the use efficiency of the transport vehicle is reduced as a whole.

Accordingly, the present invention has been made in view of the above points,
An object of the present invention is to provide a transport trolley that can perform efficient operation by changing a transport speed according to a transported object.

[0005]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a weight sensor for measuring a weight of a conveyed object placed on a carrier, and a relation between the weight and the speed of the conveyed object. Defined speed defining means, control means for determining a speed by referring to the speed defining means based on the weight of the conveyed object measured by the weight sensor, and predetermined rotation based on a speed control signal from the control means. A transport trolley provided with a wheel drive mechanism for rotating wheels by number is used. According to the first aspect of the present invention, when a product or material is transported by a transport trolley at a production factory or the like, the weight of a transported object placed on the transport trolley is measured, and the speed of the transport trolley is determined based on the weight. Is controlled, it is possible to improve the transport efficiency of the transported object.

[0006]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an appearance of a transport vehicle according to the present invention. As shown in FIG. 1, the transport trolley 1 includes a main body 2, a loading platform 3, a connecting portion 4, a front wheel 5a, and a rear wheel 5b. Also, in FIG.
Numeral 6 denotes a conveyed object, and numeral 7 denotes a rail. In FIG. 1, the carrier 1 travels leftward on rails 7 by rotation of wheels 5a and 5b. The carrier 1 shown in FIG.
Is similar to the conventional one as far as its appearance is concerned.

Next, an internal structure for driving the transport vehicle shown in FIG. 1 will be described. FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram of the inside of the carrier according to the present invention. In FIG. 2, 11 is a weight sensor, 12 is control means, 13 is a weight-speed table, and 14 is a wheel drive mechanism. Front wheel 5
a, the rear wheels 5b have the same reference numerals as in FIG.

The weight sensor 11 is provided on the carrier 3 of the carrier 1 shown in FIG. 1. When the carrier 6 is placed on the carrier 3, the weight sensor 11 detects that the carrier 6 has been placed, and detects the carrier. The weight of the object 6 is measured. As such a weight sensor 11, a known sensor can be used. The control means 12 controls the transported object 6 measured by the weight sensor.
For controlling the speed of the transport vehicle 1 based on the weight of the transport vehicle 1. This control means is actually realized by a CPU and a memory.

The weight-speed table 13 is a table in which the relationship between the weight of the transported object 6 and the speed of the transport trolley 1 is recorded according to a predetermined rule, and is actually stored in a predetermined storage device such as a ROM. Various tables can be set as the weight-speed table 13 according to the administrator's intention. An example of the weight-speed table 13 is shown in FIG. FIG.
In the weight-speed table 13 shown in FIG.
The relationship between the weight of the carriage 1 and the speed of the carrier 1 is defined.
In the example of FIG. 3, when the weight is less than 1 kg, the speed is 1 hour / hour.
0km, if the weight is 1kg or more and less than 5kg, the speed is 7km / h, if the weight is 5kg or more and less than 10kg, the speed is 5km / h, if the weight is 10kg or more and less than 20kg, the speed is 3km / h and the weight is 20kg or more Is defined as a speed of 2 km / h.

The wheel drive mechanism 14 is for controlling the drive of the wheels 5a and 5b based on the speed control signal from the control means 12, and is actually realized by a motor or the like.

Next, the operation of the carrier according to the present invention will be described. FIG. 4 shows an example of a layout of a production factory. The layout shown in FIG. 4 is the simplest for explaining the operation of the transport vehicle. In FIG.
Reference numeral 1 denotes a carrier, 7 denotes a rail, 21 denotes a warehouse, and 22 denotes equipment. The transport trolley 1 stops at the point A on the rail (adjacent to the warehouse 21), receives the transported object 6 from the warehouse 21, and places it on the carrier 3. When the article 6 is placed on the carrier 3, the weight sensor 11 installed in the carrier 3 detects that the article 6 is placed, and measures the weight. Subsequently, the weight sensor 11 transmits the measured weight to the control means 12. The control unit 12 refers to the weight-speed table 13 using the weight of the conveyed object 6 transmitted from the weight sensor 11. Since the control speed is obtained by referring to the weight-speed table 13, the control unit 12 transmits the obtained control speed to the wheel drive mechanism 14. According to the control speed signal from the control means 12, the wheel drive mechanism 14
The speeds of the front wheel 5a and the rear wheel 5b are changed. For example, if the weight of the transported object 6 is “25 kg”, by referring to the weight-speed table 13 shown in FIG.
The speed "2 km / h" is obtained. That is, the transport vehicle 1
Means traveling at a speed of 2 km / h from the point A to the left in FIG.

The carriage 1 travels on the rail 7 and stops at a point B (adjacent to the equipment 22). In addition, the transport vehicle 1
Is set to stop at a point adjacent to a predetermined facility such as a point A, a point B or the like, regardless of the weight of the conveyed material, similarly to the conventional transport cart. When stopped at the point B, the transport trolley 1 unloads the transported article 6 from the loading platform 3 and delivers it to the equipment 22. When the transported object 6 is unloaded from the carrier 3, the weight sensor 11 installed in the carrier 3 detects that the transported object 6 has been unloaded, and measures the weight on the carrier 3. Subsequently, the weight sensor 11 transmits the measured weight to the control means 12. The control means 12 controls the weight-speed table 1 based on the weight on the bed 3 transmitted from the weight sensor 11.
Please refer to FIG. Since the control speed is obtained by referring to the weight-speed table 13, the control means 12
The obtained control speed is transmitted to the wheel drive mechanism 14. The wheel drive mechanism 14 changes the speed of the front wheel 5a and the rear wheel 5b according to the control speed signal from the control means 12. For example, assuming that the conveyed article 6 on the loading platform 3 is unloaded and that nothing is placed on the loading platform 3, that is, the weight on the loading platform 3 is "0 kg", the weight-speed table shown in FIG. 13, the speed “10 km
/ H "is obtained. That is, the transport vehicle 1 travels from the point B to the left in FIG. 4 at a speed of 10 km / h.

FIG. 4 shows an example of the simplest layout, so that the carriage moves from point B to the left, turns at the left end, turns to the right, and turns at the right end to reach point A.
At point A, the load 6 is loaded as described above, and the above processing is repeated.

Although the preferred embodiment of the present invention has been described above, the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, and can be implemented in various modes. For example, in the above embodiment, a table defining the relationship between weight and speed as shown in FIG. 3 is used as a weight-speed table for speed control, but a table for driving wheels instead of speed is used. The number of rotations of the drive motor or the number of the gear of the wheel drive mechanism may be defined.

The rule for determining the speed from the weight does not necessarily need to be in the form of a table such as the weight-speed table 13, but indicates the relationship between the weight and the speed, the number of rotations of the motor, the gears, and the like. The speed may be determined by preparing the above formula and calculating by the control means 12.

[0016]

As described above, according to the present invention,
Measures the transport trolley that transports products and materials at a production factory, etc. Control means for determining the speed by referring to the speed defining means based on the weight of the conveyed object, and a wheel drive mechanism for rotating the wheels at a predetermined number of revolutions based on a speed control signal from the control means. If the load on the carrier is heavy, it will travel at low speed, and if the weight of the product is small or there is nothing on the platform, it will travel at high speed. In addition, there is an effect that the transport efficiency of the transported object using the transport cart is improved.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a view showing an external appearance of a transport vehicle according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram of the inside of the transport vehicle according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a weight-speed table 13;

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of a layout in a production factory.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Carriage cart 2 ... Carriage cart main body 3 ... Carrier 4 ... Connection part 5a ... Front wheel 5b ... Rear wheel 6 ... Cargo 7 ... Rail 11 ...・ Weight sensor 12 ・ ・ ・ Control means 13 ・ ・ ・ Weight-speed table 14 ・ ・ ・ Wheel drive mechanism 21 ・ ・ ・ Warehouse 22 ・ ・ ・ Equipment

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A weight sensor for measuring the weight of a conveyed object placed on a loading platform; speed defining means for defining a relationship between the weight of the conveyed object and a speed; Control means for determining a speed by referring to the speed defining means based on the speed control means, and a wheel drive mechanism for rotating wheels at a predetermined rotation speed based on a speed control signal from the control means. Characteristic transport cart. 2. The transport trolley according to claim 1, wherein said speed defining means is a weight-speed table in which the relationship between weight and speed is defined stepwise. 3. The transport trolley according to claim 1, wherein said speed defining means is a weight-speed relationship equation which continuously defines a relationship between weight and speed.