JPH04210358A - Management device for transfer car - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To realize the effective activity of a transfer car, by equipping a transfer order deciding means which decides the transfer order of a transfer destination based on the memory content of a transfer destination present estimation information memory part for the transfer request by a transfer destination transfer request means. CONSTITUTION:A transfer order deciding means 15 decides as to whether or not there has been a transfer request by a transfer destination vacancy from a transfer destination based on the table content of a transfer destination present estimating information memory part 14, in case of there being a transfer request from a memory part 11, confirming that the work number under the present transfer does not become a station buffer number is case of deciding there is, deciding the proper transfer destination station 3, and informing to a transfer indication means 16. On the other hand, in case of no transfer request, the transfer time spent in the movement, etc., of an unmanned transfer car 3 upto the transfer destination station 3 transferring a transfer work 1 from a transfer origin station 2 is calculated. Thereafter, in the means 15, the present vacancy estimating time inside the memory part 14 is read, a transfer destination station 3 in the relation of transfer time <= present vacancy estimation time is decided, and informed to the means 16.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Object of the Invention] (Industrial Application Field) The present invention relates to a guided vehicle management device for transporting a transported work from a source station to a destination station using, for example, an automatic guided vehicle. In particular, the present invention relates to a guided vehicle management device that determines the transport order of automatic guided vehicles from the viewpoint of transport efficiency.

(Prior Art) In this type of automatic guided vehicle management device, several methods have been considered for determining the transport order of automatic guided vehicles.

■ One of them is that if the destination station is vacant, a transportation instruction is issued according to the order of transportation requests from the transportation source, and if the destination station is not vacant, a transportation instruction is not issued, or other execution requests are issued. If there is no such information, a transport instruction is issued.

■ The other method is to group multiple transport source stations together, while setting the transport priority order and transport limit number for each group, and if the transport request from the transport source is within the transport limit number, then This is a system in which transport instructions are issued in order of transport priority, and if the number exceeds the transport limit, the transport instruction is issued after a transport instruction based on the transport priority within the transport limit number.

■Furthermore, when the transport source station transports the workpiece to the transport destination station, the transport load including the total transport time, the number of transported work pieces, etc. is calculated, and transport instructions are given from the station with the highest transport load. It is a method.

(Problem to be solved by the invention) However, among the above-mentioned management devices, when the method (①) is used to issue a transport instruction after a transport destination becomes vacant, the automatic guided vehicle waits until the transport destination becomes vacant. As a result, the transport vehicle cannot be used effectively, resulting in extremely poor transport efficiency.

On the other hand, if a transport instruction is issued even if the transport destination is not vacant, or in the case of methods ① and ③ above, when transporting to the transport destination station, the transport vehicle may be placed on temporary standby when the transport destination station is not vacant. There is a problem of not being able to utilize the automated guided vehicle effectively, as described above, because it is necessary to leave the vehicle alone or to transport it another round. In other words, the automatic guided vehicle is often stopped at the destination because it is unable to unload the transported workpiece at the destination, or it continues to circle around the destination.As a result, traffic congestion of the guided vehicle is unavoidable. Conveyance efficiency deteriorates.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned circumstances, and an object of the present invention is to provide a conveyance vehicle management device that can eliminate problems such as congestion of conveyance vehicles and one round trip of the conveyance vehicle, and can effectively utilize the conveyance vehicles.

[Configuration of the Invention (Means for Solving the Problems) In order to solve the above problems, the present invention provides a conveyance vehicle management device that determines a conveyance destination in response to a conveyance request from a conveyance source and conveys a conveyed workpiece. , a transport source transport requesting means for accepting a transport request from a transport destination and outputting a transport request, a transport destination presence prediction means for predicting the time to process the present work, and the number of present works at each transport destination and the above. a destination occupancy prediction information storage section that stores occupancy window prediction time information based on the work processing prediction time of the occupancy time prediction means; and a destination occupancy prediction information storage section that stores occupancy window prediction time information based on the work processing prediction time of the occupancy time prediction means; This configuration includes a transport order determining means for determining the transport order of the transport destination based on the stored contents of.

(Function) Therefore, in the present invention, by taking the above-mentioned measures, the destination occupancy prediction means calculates the occupancy work processing time for each destination station and stores it in the destination occupancy prediction information storage section. set in the table. This table stores the number of occupied workpieces being transported and the predicted occupancy window time obtained from the processing time of the occupied workpieces, and this predicted occupancy window time changes sequentially as time passes.

In this state, when there is a transport request from the transport source, the transport destination is determined while taking into account the predicted seating window time and the transportation time of the transport vehicle, the transport work is transported, and the workpiece is stopped at the transport destination. Workpieces can be transported efficiently.

(Example) Examples of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS. 1 to 4. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the overall configuration of the device of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a layout diagram showing an example of an unmanned transportation system, FIG. 3 is a memory table diagram of the destination occupancy prediction information storage unit, and FIG. It is an operation flowchart for determining the transport order.

First, the configuration of the unmanned transportation system shown in FIG. 2 will be explained. That is, this system includes, for example, four transport source stations 2. ...and these four transport source stations 2. . . . means, for example, four destination stations 3. ... are arranged, and a guide path 5 is laid in this transport movement area so that the automatic guided vehicle 4 can go around once.

This automatic guided vehicle 4 receives the transported workpiece 1 from the transport source.
After arriving at the destination station 3, a transfer request is issued and delivered to the destination station 3, and this device is equipped with a management device having functional blocks as shown in FIG. 6 is each destination station 3. Transport work 1. This is a stacker crane that takes in and transports and stores it to the shelves 7 lined up at the rear of each station.

In addition, the automatic guided vehicle 4 and each station 2. ..., 3.
. . . are not shown in the drawings, or are configured to transmit and receive signals by wireless or optical signals or other conventionally known signal transmitting and receiving means.

Next, as shown in FIG. 1, the conveyance vehicle management device controls each conveyance source station 2. Conveyance request input means 1 that determines a conveyance destination based on a predetermined order or arbitrary conveyance destination designation in response to a conveyance request from ... and stores it in a conveyance request storage section 11.
2, destination presence prediction means 1B that predicts the processing time of the present work in advance based on the work movement uptake time of the conveyed work 1 on the destination station 3 in the stacker crane 6 and the storage time on the shelf 7; Attendance prediction means 1
A destination presence information storage unit 14 is provided which stores the predicted presence window time based on the presence work processing time obtained in step 3. As shown in FIG. 3, this transport destination presence information storage unit 14 contains areas such as the number of transport destination station No. 1 station buffers (limited number of objects to be transported), the number of works currently being transported at the station, and the predicted seating window time. There are tables with tables. This figure 3 shows that when the stacker crane 6 operates in a predetermined order, vacancies occur in the order of destination stations 3, ], 4.2, and the time interval (attended work processing time) is 30 seconds. It means something. Furthermore, from FIG. 3, the number of buffers at station No. 3 is "2", while the number of transported workpieces 1 is "1", which means that one transported workpiece 1 can be carried in.

5 is a transport order determining means that determines the transport order while looking at the table in the transport destination occupancy prediction information storage unit 14 when there is a transport request from the transport request storage unit 11; 16 is a transport order determining unit 15;
This is a transport instruction means that issues a transport instruction based on a transport destination designation from.

Next, we will discuss the operation of the device configured as described above in the fourth section.
This will be explained with reference to the figures. First, transportation request input means]-2
Then, if there is a transport request from the transport source station 2, the transport destination is determined in a predetermined order or based on the transport destination designation if there is a transport destination designation, and is stored in the transport request storage section 11.

In this state, the transport order determining means 15
When there is a transport request from 1, it is determined whether there is a transport request from the transport destination due to an empty transport destination based on the table contents of the transport destination occupancy prediction information storage unit 14 as shown in FIG. When it is determined that there is a request, it is checked from the table contents of the destination existing child ΔIIJ information storage unit 14 that the number of works currently being conveyed does not equal the number of station buffers, and the destination station 3 where the conveyance request was made is checked. It is determined and notified to the transport instruction means 16 (S2
). Here, the automatic guided vehicle 4 loads the transport work 1 of the transport source station 2 for which transport was requested based on the transport instruction from the transport instruction means 16, and moves toward the transport destination empty station for which the transport was requested. become. Note that when the transport order determining means 15 issues a transport notification or hands over the transport work 1 at the transport destination, it adds "+1" to the number of works currently being transported at the transport destination station.

On the other hand, if there is no transport request for a vacant transport destination from the transport destination occupied child n] information storage unit 14, that is, if the number of works currently being transported at all transport destination stations in the table has reached the number of station buffers, the transport source Calculate the transport time required for the movement of the automatic guided vehicle 3 from the station 2 to the transport destination station 3 that transports the transport work 1 (S3)
. Since this transportation time is known in advance, it can be made into a table and referred to, or it can be calculated by calculation or the like.

After that, the conveyance order determining means] 5 reads the predicted seating window time in the destination occupancy prediction information storage unit 14 (S4).
, it is determined whether or not there is a relationship between transportation time ≦ predicted seating window time (S5), and if the above relationship does not exist, step S is performed again.
1 to proceed with the process, and on the other hand, if the above relationship exists, the transport destination station 3 having the relationship of transport time≦predicted seating window time is determined and is notified to the transport instruction means 16 (S6
).

Therefore, the automatic guided vehicle 4 moves toward the destination station 3 according to the instructions from the transportation instruction means 16.

Furthermore, in step S7, it is determined whether all the transport requests have been completed, and if not, the process returns to the beginning and similarly executes a series of processes.

Therefore, according to the configuration of the embodiment as described above, when a transport request is received from the transport source, the transport destination is sequentially determined and a transport instruction is issued while checking the predicted occupancy time of each transport destination station, which changes sequentially. Therefore, the transport vehicle 4 may stop at the transport destination,
The destination station 3 is no longer made to make a full circuit with the workpieces 1 to be transported, and the transport vehicle 4 can be operated smoothly, and the workpieces 1 to be transported can be used efficiently. Furthermore, each destination station 3. Since the number of workpieces currently being transported is sequentially varied, the transport request status of empty transport destinations can be quickly grasped from the number of workpieces currently being transported and the number of station buffers.
The workpiece 1 can be transported at an early stage.

It goes without saying that the present invention is not limited to automatic guided vehicles, and the work 1 at the destination station 3 may be stored on a shelf 7 using a stacker crane 6, or may be stored on a shelf 7 using a variety of known methods other than the stacker crane 6. The structure may be such that the storage device is stored on the shelf 7 using a conveying means. In addition, the present invention can be implemented with various modifications without departing from the gist thereof.

[Effects of the Invention] As explained above, according to the present invention, the transport destination is sequentially determined while checking the occupancy/vacancy time of each transport destination station. Therefore, it is possible to provide a transport vehicle management device that can effectively utilize transport vehicles.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

1 to 4 are shown to explain an embodiment of the guided vehicle management device according to the present invention, FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the overall configuration of the device of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is an unmanned FIG. 3 is a layout diagram showing an example of a transport system, FIG. 3 is a memory table diagram of a transport destination occupancy prediction information storage unit, and FIG. 4 is an operation flowchart for determining the transport order. 1... Transfer workpiece, 2... Transfer source station, 3
...Destination station, 4...Transport vehicle, 7...
Shelf, 11...Transportation request storage section, 12...Transportation request input means, 13...Transportation destination presence prediction means, 14...Transportation destination presence prediction information storage section, 15...Transportation order means of decision,
16...Transportation instruction means. Applicant's agent Patent attorney Takehiko Suzue Figure 1

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] In a management device for a transport vehicle that determines a transport destination in response to a transport request from a transport source and transports the transported work, the transport source transport receives a transport request from the transport destination and outputs the transport request. a requesting means, a destination occupancy prediction means for predicting the time to process the attended work, and a predicted occupancy time information based on the number of attended works at each destination and the predicted work processing time of the occupancy time prediction means. A transport order determination unit that determines the transport order of the transport destination based on the stored transport destination occupancy prediction information storage unit and the storage content of the transport destination occupancy prediction information storage unit in response to the transport request by the transport source transport requesting means. A conveyance vehicle management device equipped with means and means.