JPH04236607A - Unattended carriage - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide an unattended carriage requiring no guide electric lines by detecting positions of holes on the floor surface of a clean room to run the carriage. CONSTITUTION:A one-dimensional line sensor 1 detects positions of holes on the floor surface of the clean room, and this data corresponding to two times of detection is stored in a shift register 3. A center search part 4 detects the positional deviation from the center of the hole in accordance with this data to obtain the positional deviation of the unattended carriage. This deviation is added to speed information stored in a running pattern memory, and the unattended carriage runs while correcting the positional deviation.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

0001

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an automatic guided vehicle, and more particularly to a single-track (straight) automatic guided vehicle used in a clean room.

0002

[Prior Art] A conventional automatic guided vehicle includes, for example, an oscillator that emits carrier radio waves, an induction wire attached to the oscillator and laid along the traveling route of the automatic guided vehicle, and an electric wire attached to the front of the lower part of the automatic guided vehicle. , two pairs of left and right antennas that receive guided radio waves from the induction wire; two pairs of amplifiers that are attached to the antennas and amplify the guided radio waves received by the antennas; A comparison circuit is attached to the comparison circuit to compare the magnitude of the induced radio waves received by the left antenna, and if the radio waves received by the left antenna are strong, the right motor is A driver that rotates the left motor, two pairs of motors that are attached to the driver and rotate the tires described below, and two pairs of tires that are attached to the motors and make the automatic guided vehicle run by rotating themselves. It consists of:

Next, a conventional automatic guided vehicle will be explained in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 5 is a configuration diagram showing an example of a conventional automatic guided vehicle. The automatic guided vehicle shown in FIG. 5 includes an oscillator 13 that emits carrier radio waves, an induction wire 14 that is attached to the oscillator 13, and is laid along the travel route of the automatic guided vehicle.
Two pairs of left and right antennas 151 and 15 are attached to the lower front surface of the automatic guided vehicle and receive guided radio waves from the guided wire 14.
2, two pairs of amplifiers 161 and 162 that amplify the guided radio waves received by the antennas 151 and 152, and two pairs of amplifiers 1
61, 162, left and right antennas 151, 15
2 is attached to the comparison circuit 17, and if the radio waves received by the left antenna 151 are strong, the right motor is connected, and the radio waves received by the right antenna 151 are strong. In this case, there is a driver 18 that rotates the left motor, and two pairs of motors 111 that are attached to the driver 18 and rotate tires 121 and 122.
112, and two pairs of tires 121, 122 that are attached to motors 111, 112 and rotate to make the automatic guided vehicle travel.

[0005] The oscillator 13 oscillates a guided radio wave for the automatic guided vehicle. The output of the oscillator 13 is connected to an induction wire 14 laid along the route of the automatic guided vehicle.

[0006] An induction wire 14 is installed on the lower front of the automatic guided vehicle.
Left and right antennas 151 and 152 are attached so as to straddle the area. The guided radio waves received by the antennas 151 and 152 are amplified by amplifiers 161 and 162,
The signal is input to the comparison circuit 17. The comparison circuit 17 compares the radio waves received by the left and right antennas 151 and 152, and if the radio waves received by the left antenna 151 are strong, the right motor 1
1, if the radio waves received by the right antenna 152 are strong, the left motor 111 will be rotated.

FIG. 6 shows this situation. If the guided radio wave received by the left antenna is strong with respect to the direction of travel of the automatic guided vehicle, it can be seen that the automatic guided vehicle is facing to the right with respect to the direction of travel of the automatic guided vehicle. Therefore, it is necessary to rotate the right motor (tire) to restore the original direction of travel.

Now, the comparison result of the comparison circuit 17 is transmitted to the driver 18, and the driver 18 drives the left and right motors (tires) to cause the automatic guided vehicle to travel along the guide wire.

[0009] Normally, two pairs of encoders are connected to the left and right tires on the same shaft, and the automatic guided vehicle travels while determining the travel distance.

0010

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The conventional automatic guided vehicle described above has a drawback in that it is necessary to install a guiding wire for guiding the automatic guided vehicle.

[0011]

[Means for solving the problems] The automatic guided vehicle of the present invention has the following features:
A one-dimensional line sensor detects the position of a hole on the clean room floor, a photo sensor similarly detects the presence or absence of a hole on the clean room floor, and the output of the one-dimensional line sensor is shifted by a shift clock, and the one-dimensional A shift register that can store the sensor output of the line sensor twice, and detects the amount of deviation of the hole in the clean room floor from the shift result of the shift register twice, and increases the output in the direction in which the automatic guided vehicle should originally go. a central search unit, a travel pattern memory that stores the travel pattern of the automatic guided vehicle in pairs of speed and distance, a speed control unit that is connected to the travel pattern memory and generates a speed voltage from the speed information, and a speed control unit that generates a speed voltage from the speed information. a voltage frequency converter that converts the frequency into the shift clock, a frequency dividing circuit that divides the frequency of the shift clock by the number of output bits of the one-dimensional line sensor, and the running pattern memory according to the output of the photosensor. a counter that counts down the distance information output by the controller and increments the read address of the travel pattern memory by one when it reaches 0; a voltage adder that adds the speed voltage and the voltage output from the center search unit; The automatic guided vehicle is characterized by comprising two sets of tires for moving the automatic guided vehicle forward by the rotation of the motor, and a motor for rotating the tires in accordance with the output of the voltage adding section.

0012

Embodiments Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention. The automatic guided vehicle shown in FIG. 1 includes a one-dimensional line sensor 1 that detects the position of a hole on the floor of a clean room, a photo sensor 2 that also detects the presence or absence of a hole on the floor of the clean room, and a one-dimensional line sensor 1 that detects the position of a hole on the floor of a clean room. There is a shift register 3 that can shift the output using a shift clock and store the sensor output a of the one-dimensional line sensor 1 twice, and detect the amount of deviation of the hole in the clean room floor from the shift result of the shift register 3 twice. , a central search unit 4 that increases the output of the direction in which the automatic guided vehicle should originally travel, a traveling pattern memory 6 that stores the traveling pattern of the automatic guided vehicle in pairs of speed and distance; a speed control section 7 that generates a speed voltage g from information c; a voltage frequency conversion section 8 that converts the speed voltage g into a frequency and uses it as the shift clock; A frequency dividing circuit 5 that divides the frequency by
A counter 9 counts down the distance information d output from the drive pattern memory 6 and increments by one the read address of the travel pattern memory 6 which has reached 0, and the speed voltage g and the left output e and the right output f output from the center search section 4. Voltage addition unit 101, 1 to add
02, two sets of tires 121 and 122 for moving the automatic guided vehicle forward by their own rotation, and a voltage adding unit 101,
The motors 111 and 112 rotate the tires 121 and 122 according to the output of the motor 102.

[0014] The floor of the clean room has holes (punching) to allow downflow to escape. Figure 2 shows this situation. The one-dimensional line sensor 1 is
It is attached to the bottom of the automated guided vehicle and detects the position of the hole in the floor.

Similarly, the photosensor 2 is also attached to the lower part of the automatic guided vehicle so as to be able to detect holes in the floor. It is attached on the central axis of the one-dimensional line sensor 1.

Sensor output a from the one-dimensional line sensor 1
is input to the shift register 3. shift register 3
has a capacity twice the number of bits of this sensor output a. The shift register 3 shifts data using the shift clock b output from the voltage frequency converter 8.

The shift register 3 stores the sensor output a of the one-dimensional line sensor 1 twice, and these are connected to the center search section 4. The center search section 4 is connected to the output of the frequency dividing circuit 5 and the output of the photosensor 2, and performs the following operation when these signals are input. That is, the outputs t-1 and t of the shift register
The positional shift of the automatic guided vehicle is detected from this point. This will be discussed later. The center search unit 4 outputs a left output e and a right output f.

Now, in the travel pattern memory 6, travel patterns of automatic guided vehicles are stored in pairs of speed and distance for each destination. Since automatic guided vehicles travel on single-track (straight) roads, only these two elements are required. Speed information c output from the driving pattern memory 6 is input to the speed control section 7. The speed control section 7 converts this speed information c into a speed voltage g. This speed voltage g is eventually input to the motors 111 and 112.

Further, this speed voltage g is input to the voltage frequency converter 8, where it undergoes voltage-frequency conversion and becomes the shift clock b.

Distance information d, which is another output of the traveling pattern memory 6, is input to the counter 9.

Each time the photosensor 2 detects the position of the hole on the floor, a countdown is performed, and when it reaches 0, it indicates that the destination has been reached. At this time, the read address of the running pattern memory 6 is advanced by one.

The speed voltage g, which is the output of the speed control section 7, is
The voltage is input to voltage adders 101 and 102.

The left output e and right output f, which are the outputs of the center search unit 4, are also connected to the voltage adders 101 and 102, and are added to the speed voltage g, respectively, and this result (voltage) is applied to the motor 1.
11 and 112, and the motors 111 and 112 rotate. These motors 111, 112 are connected to tires 121, 12.
2, and as a result, the automatic guided vehicle can travel.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing the operation of the central search section 4 constituting one embodiment of the present invention. First, the automatic guided vehicle is placed so that the hole in the floor surface is detected at the center of the one-dimensional line sensor 1. The center search unit 4 compares t-1 and t, which are the outputs of the shift register 3, and if the image located at the center shifts to the right (rightward direction), it increases the opposite left output and moves the image to the left. If it deviates from the right side, it operates to increase the right side output. This corrects the positional deviation of the automatic guided vehicle.

FIG. 4 is an operational explanatory diagram showing the state of speed control in one embodiment of the present invention. The automatic guided vehicle converts the speed information c (shown in FIG. 4(a)) stored in the travel pattern memory 6 into the speed voltage g (shown in FIG. 4(b)) by the speed control unit 7.
), thereby converting the motors 111, 112
Rotate and run. This speed voltage g is combined with the left output e (shown in Figure 4(c)) and right output f (Figure 4(c)) for positional deviation correction.
d) shown in Figure 4(e) and Figure 4(d) to obtain outputs as shown in Figures 4(e) and 4(d) to control the motors on each side and drive the vehicle.

[0026]

Effects of the Invention As described above, the automatic guided vehicle of the present invention can move while detecting the position of the hole in the floor, which is always available in high-class clean rooms. This has the effect that there is no need to lay induction wires to guide cars.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing an example of a floor surface of a clean room.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram for explaining the operation of a central search section that constitutes one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram for explaining the state of speed control in an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a configuration diagram showing a conventional example.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram for explaining a conventional automatic guided vehicle guidance method.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 1-dimensional line sensor 2 Photo sensor 3 Shift register 4 Central search section 5 Frequency divider circuit 6　　　　　Travel pattern memory 7 Speed control section 8 Voltage frequency conversion section 9 Counter 101 Voltage addition section 102 Voltage addition section 111 Motor 112 Motor 121 Tire 122 Tire 13 Oscillator 14 Induction wire 151 Antenna 152 Antenna 161 Amplifier 162 Amplifier 17 Comparison circuit 18 Driver

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A one-dimensional line sensor that detects the position of a hole on the floor of a clean room, a photo sensor that also detects the presence or absence of a hole on the floor of the clean room, and an output of the one-dimensional line sensor that is shifted by a shift clock. death,
A shift register that can store the sensor output of the one-dimensional line sensor twice, and a shift amount of the hole in the clean room floor from the two shift results of the shift register are detected to determine the direction in which the automatic guided vehicle should originally travel. a central search unit that increases the output; a travel pattern memory that stores the travel pattern of the automatic guided vehicle as a set of speed and distance; a speed control unit that is connected to the travel pattern memory and generates a speed voltage from the speed information; a voltage frequency converter that converts a speed voltage into a frequency and uses the shift clock as the shift clock; a frequency dividing circuit that divides the shift clock by the number of output bits of the one-dimensional line sensor; a counter that counts down the distance information output from the travel pattern memory and increments the read address of the travel pattern memory by one when it reaches 0; and a voltage addition section that adds the speed voltage and the voltage output from the center search section. An automatic guided vehicle, comprising: two sets of tires for moving the automatic guided vehicle forward by their own rotation; and a motor for rotating the tires in accordance with the output of the voltage adder.