JPH0837701A - Unmanned carrier - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide an unmanned carrier equipped with means which can adjust the sound intensity of a loudspeaker in accordance with the magnitude of background noise. CONSTITUTION:When a sensor 2 detects one of the mark plates installed to each point having different background noise level along the route of an unmanned carrier, a muCPU 10 sends a command signal (d) based on the detecting signal (g) of the sensor 2 outputted from the sensor 2 upon detecting the mark plate and a programmable gain amplifier 7 sets a gain suitable for the magnitude of the background noise at the point in accordance with the command signal (d) and, at the same time, sends the signal of a chime, an alarm sound, etc., sent from a melody IC 6 to a loudspeaker 9 based on the gain.

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 is particularly useful when applied to a case where the volume of various sounds such as an alarm sound and a chime sound output from a speaker is appropriately adjusted in a traveling route.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Generally, an automatic guided vehicle is equipped with a speaker, and various sounds such as a chime sound indicating that the vehicle is traveling on a traveling route and an alarm sound indicating the occurrence of an abnormality or the detection of an obstacle are emitted from the speaker. Is output.

[0003]

However, while the speaker of the automatic guided vehicle according to the above-mentioned prior art outputs a constant volume of chime sound or warning sound, the background noise of the traveling route is large (noisy). A mixture of new and small (quiet) places.

Therefore, if the volume of the chime sound or the like is set to a level suitable for a place where the background noise is small, it may not be possible to reliably hear the chime sound when the automated guided vehicle travels in a place where the background noise is large. On the contrary, if the volume is set to a level suitable for a place with a large background noise, a chime noise or the like will be heard when the automatic guided vehicle travels in a place with a small background noise. That is, if the volume of the chime sound or the like is made constant, there is a problem in either a place where the background noise is large or a place where the background noise is small.

Therefore, in view of the above-mentioned prior art, it is an object of the present invention to provide an automatic guided vehicle equipped with a volume adjusting means capable of adjusting the volume output from a speaker in accordance with the amount of background noise. .

[0006]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, which achieves the above object, there is provided an automatic guided vehicle which travels along a predetermined traveling route and outputs a sound from a speaker on the traveling route. At each point where the background noise level is different in the travel route, a control unit that outputs a command signal to the amplifier unit so that the volume output from the speaker is an optimum volume corresponding to the magnitude of the background noise at each point, It is characterized by further comprising volume control means having a gain setting according to a command signal from the control section and an amplifier section for amplifying the sound signal based on the gain and sending the amplified signal to the speaker.

According to a second structure of the present invention for achieving the above object, in the first structure, the control unit is based on a detection signal of a sensor for detecting a mark plate provided at each point of the traveling route. It is characterized by recognizing each point on the travel route.

According to a third aspect of the present invention that achieves the above object, in the first configuration, the control unit travels according to the data representing the traveling route and the data representing each point of the traveling route stored in the memory. The feature is that each point of the route is recognized.

[0009]

According to the present invention having the above-described structure, the gain of the amplifier section is set at each point of the traveling route by the command signal of the control section. As a result, the volume of the alarm sound or the like output from the speaker is adjusted to the level of the background noise at each point.

[0010]

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a system to which an automated guided vehicle according to an embodiment of the present invention is applied. In the figure, 1 is an automated guided vehicle, 2 is a sensor, 3 is a controller, 4 is a mark plate, 5 is a guide wire, and 11 is a sensor.

As shown in FIG. 1, an automated guided vehicle 1 is equipped with sensors 2, 11, a speaker 9 and a controller 3. The sensor 11 detects a guide wire 5 provided on a traveling route and the controller 3 detects this. By performing traveling control based on the detection signal of the sensor 11, the vehicle travels along the guide wire 5 (that is, along the traveling route).

Further, the automatic guided vehicle 1 outputs various sounds from the speaker 9 based on the signal sent from the controller 6 in the traveling route. FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an extracted function of outputting such a sound provided in the automated guided vehicle 1. In the figure, 6 is a melody IC, 7 is a programmable gain amplifier, 8 is an amplifier, 9 is a speaker,
10 is a μCPU.

Of these, the melody IC 6 can output signals representing eight types of sounds, and the programmable gain amplifier 7 outputs a signal a representing any one of the eight types of sounds according to a command signal e from the μCPU 10. Send to.
The eight types of sounds include a chime sound that indicates that the automatic guided vehicle 1 is running, an alarm sound that indicates the occurrence of an abnormality or the detection of an obstacle, and the like.

The programmable gain amplifier 7 inputs the signal a sent from the melody IC,
The gain is set according to the command signal d from 10, and the signal a is amplified based on the set gain and sent to the amplifier 8 (signal b). The amplifier 8 further amplifies this signal b and sends it to the speaker 9 (signal c). Speaker 9
Outputs the chime sound, alarm sound or the like according to the signal c.

The μCPU 10 sends a command signal e to the melody IC 6 in accordance with various conditions such as the traveling state of the automatic guided vehicle 1 or the occurrence of an abnormality or the detection of an obstacle, and the melody IC 6 outputs the command signal e as described above. A signal a representing a sound corresponding to the various situations is sent out, and a start / stop signal f for supporting the start and end of sending out the signal a is also sent to the melody IC6.

Further, the μCPU 10 sends a command signal d to the programmable gain amplifier 7 based on the detection signal g of the sensor 2 to set the gain of the programmable gain amplifier 7 as described above. That is, as shown in FIG.
A mark plate 4 is installed along each guide line 5 at each point on the traveling route having a different background noise level, and the sensor 2 sends a detection signal g to the μCPU 10 each time the mark plate 4 is detected. μCPU
In 10, the command signal d is sent to the programmable gain amplifier 7 every time these detection signals g are input from the sensor 2. As a result, in the programmable gain amplifier 7, a gain corresponding to the magnitude of the background noise at each point, that is, a large gain corresponding to the background noise at each point is set based on each command signal d, and conversely, the gain is set. A small gain corresponding to this is set at a low noise point.

Therefore, according to the above embodiment, the automatic guided vehicle 1
When the vehicle travels along the travel route and approaches a large place with a small background noise, the sensor 2 detects the mark plate 4 at the point. As a result, the μCPU 10 sends a command signal d based on the detection signal g at this time, and the programmable gain amplifier 7 sets a large gain based on the command signal d. On the other hand, when approaching from a place where the background noise is small to a place where the background noise is large, the mark plate 4 at the point is detected, and the programmable gain amplifier 7 makes a small noise based on the command signal d sent in response to the detection signal g at this time. The gain is set.

In this way, the volume of the chime sound, the alarm sound, etc. output from the speaker 9 is adjusted to an optimum volume corresponding to the level of the background noise at each place on the traveling route, and the chime sound or the like is generated in the place where the background noise is large. You will not be able to hear or hear the chime noise in a place with low background noise.

In the above embodiment, the case of the guide type automatic guided vehicle 1 which requires the guide wire 5 has been described.
The present invention can also be applied to the case of an autonomous guided vehicle that does not require a guide line. Specifically, an autonomous guided vehicle is a memory in which data indicating a travel route is stored in advance, and the vehicle position is controlled so that the vehicle position is located on the travel route while detecting the current position by various sensors. Since the vehicle travels autonomously by doing so, data indicating each point of the traveling route is stored in the memory together with the data indicating the traveling route, and the command signal d (FIG. (Refer to FIG. 2), and other configurations are the same as those in FIG.

[0021]

As described above in detail with the embodiments, according to the present invention, the gain of the amplifier section is set according to the magnitude of the background noise at each point in the traveling route, so that it is output from the speaker. The optimum volume corresponds to the background noise level at each point. Therefore, the sound output from the speaker will not be heard in a place with a large background noise, and will not be heard in a place with a small background noise.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of a system to which an automated guided vehicle according to an embodiment of the present invention is applied.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing extracted output function parts such as a chime sound and an alarm sound provided in the automatic guided vehicle shown in FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Automated guided vehicle 2, 11 Sensor 3 Controller 4 Mark plate 5 Guide wire 6 Melody IC 7 Programmable gain amplifier 8 Amplifier 9 Speaker 10 μCPU a, b, c signal d, e Command signal f Start / stop signal g Detection signal

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. An unmanned guided vehicle that travels along a predetermined travel route and outputs a sound from a speaker on the travel route, wherein the volume output from the speaker at each point where the background noise level is different on the travel route. Is a control unit that outputs a command signal to the amplifier unit in order to obtain an optimum volume corresponding to the background noise level for each point, and a gain is set according to the command signal of this control unit, and based on this gain An automatic guided vehicle comprising: a volume adjusting unit having an amplifier unit that amplifies the sound signal and sends the amplified signal to the speaker. 2. The automatic guided vehicle according to claim 1, wherein the control unit recognizes each point of the traveling route based on a detection signal of a sensor that detects a mark plate provided for each point of the traveling route. An automated guided vehicle characterized by that. 3. The automatic guided vehicle according to claim 1, wherein the control unit recognizes each point of the traveling route based on data representing each point of the traveling route stored in the memory together with data representing the traveling route. Characteristic automated guided vehicle.