JPH1185278A - Unmanned truck system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To make it easy to start and end the unmanned truck system by providing a control processor with a means which commands each unmanned truck to start and stop. SOLUTION: A system computer 12 while receiving commands from a host computer and terminals manages unmanned trucks V1 to V4 and stations S1 to S9 to manage the unmanned truck system. An unmanned truck management part 14 communicates with the unmanned trucks V1 to V4 by radio or a cable and makes them to report their current positions, execution states of conveyance commands, the positions of home positions that they are to enter, their start/stop states or the like. Further, multistage conveyance commands such as commands which should be executed immediately and reserved commands to be executed right after commands being executed are allocated to the respective unmanned trucks V1 to V4. Further, a command for nighttime maintenance charging is also inputted to the respective unmanned trucks V1 to V4 in addition to the start/stop command. Consequently, the unmanned trucks V1 to V4 can start and stop only with the commands of the system computer 12.

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 system that travels on the ground or on a ceiling.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art An automatic guided vehicle system is used for transporting articles in factories and warehouses. In the automated guided vehicle system, several to several tens of automated guided vehicles are used and run along the track, or run while recognizing the current position on the track by scanning a position recognition pattern with a laser or the like. Let it.

[0003] In a conventional automatic guided vehicle system,
The automatic guided vehicle could not be automatically started / falled. For example, when starting up in the early morning or the like, it is necessary to manually start up each automatic guided vehicle. Further, in the fall of the automatic guided vehicle, for example, it is necessary to collect all the automatic guided vehicles at one place, stop, and manually fall down one by one. Therefore, the start-up and fall-down of the automatic guided vehicle system is a time-consuming operation.

[0004]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to enable each automatic guided vehicle to automatically start / fall. An additional object of the invention according to claims 2 and 3 is to prevent troubles when falling.

[0005]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, in a system in which a large number of automatic guided vehicles are managed by a control processor, the control processor instructs each automatic guided vehicle to rise / fall. Means is provided. For example, a computer is used as the control processor, and start / fall commands are input to the automatic guided vehicle, for example, wirelessly or by wire. Further, in this specification, the term "automated guided vehicle" means, in principle, an all-automated guided vehicle. In such cases, the term is used in a meaning excluding these automatic guided vehicles.

The invention according to a second aspect is further characterized in that the automatic guided vehicle is configured to move to a predetermined home position after executing an assigned transport command by a fall command. The assigned transfer command refers to a transfer command instructed by the control processor to perform processing, and after executing the command, moves the automatic guided vehicle to a predetermined home position.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, when the user inputs a fall, the control processor is configured to display the presence / absence of an unassigned transfer command and request the user to confirm execution of the fall command. Is constituted.

[0008]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, a control processor for controlling the automatic guided vehicle system instructs each automatic guided vehicle to rise or fall. For this reason, the automatic guided vehicle system can be made to rise or fall only by inputting a rise or fall command to the control processor. Therefore, it is easy to start / fall the automatic guided vehicle system.

In the invention of claim 2, further, the automatic guided vehicle is caused to process a fall command so as to move to a predetermined home position after executing the assigned transfer command. For this reason, the assigned transfer command is executed reliably, and the user can issue a fall command without waiting for the assigned command to be completed. Can be eliminated.

According to the third aspect of the present invention, further, the presence / absence of an unassigned transfer command is displayed, and the fall command is executed after the user confirms that the fall is to be performed. As a result, it is possible to clarify how an unassigned transport command is to be processed, and it is possible to eliminate a trouble caused by falling.

[0011]

1 to 4 show an embodiment. FIG. 1 shows a configuration of an automatic guided vehicle system according to an embodiment. A traveling route 10 is provided inside a factory, a warehouse, or the like.
0 may be tracked or untracked. Stations S1 to S9 are provided along the traveling route 10, and the automatic guided vehicle V
1 to V4 travel, receive the transfer of articles from the station, and travel to another station for transfer. It is assumed that the number of unmanned guided vehicles is, for example, about 10 to 100, and a processor and volatile and non-volatile memories are provided to perform processing such as determination of a travel route, communication, and calculation of a required travel time.

Reference numeral 12 denotes a system computer which manages the automatic guided vehicles V1 to V4 and the stations S1 to S9 while receiving instructions from a host computer or a terminal (not shown), and operates an automatic guided vehicle system. The symbols indicated by ● in the figure indicate the home positions HP1 to HP15, and the number thereof may be equal to the number of unmanned transport vehicles or may be greater than the number of unmanned transport vehicles. In the embodiment, it is assumed that the number of home positions is larger than the number of automatic guided vehicles.

As shown in FIG. 2, automatic guided vehicles V1 to V4 are managed by a system computer 12, and an automatic guided vehicle management unit 14 communicates with the automatic guided vehicles V1 to V4 by wire or wireless communication. Each automatic guided vehicle reports the current position, the execution status of the transfer command, the position of the home position to enter, the transition to the sleep mode due to the fall, the fact that the start has been performed, and the like. Automatic guided vehicle management unit 1
Reference numeral 4 designates a transfer command assigned to each of the automatic guided vehicles V1 to V4. This assignment can be multi-staged as a command to be executed immediately or as a reserved command to be processed after completion of the command currently being executed. . In addition, the automatic guided vehicle management unit 14 inputs auxiliary commands to each automatic guided vehicle, such as falling, rising, and maintenance charging at night.

Reference numeral 16 denotes a station management unit which communicates with the individual stations S1 to S9 to manage the stations. Here, it is assumed that the stations S1 to S9 include a conveyor, a sensor, and a processor for controlling them. 1
Reference numeral 8 denotes a bus in the system computer 12, an external input / output 20 for receiving a transport command from a host computer or another terminal and reporting the result, and a transport command management for managing the execution status of the transport command received by the external input / output 20. A section 22 and an allocating section 24 for allocating a transfer command to the automatic guided vehicle are connected. Reference numeral 26 denotes a route table management unit which stores the required travel time between stations and home positions along the travel route 10 in, for example, a graph format, obtains the required travel time of each travel route, and executes the transfer command in the shortest time. Search for automatic guided vehicles that can be used.

Reference numeral 28 denotes a rise / fall processing unit, for example, which turns off the automatic guided vehicle system at the end of the night and starts the automatic guided vehicle system early in the morning. When the fall is performed, the processor of each automatic guided vehicle enters a sleep mode and does not perform any processing other than waiting for a wake-up command. In addition to this, data in a memory such as a dynamic RAM of each automatic guided vehicle is maintained.
Then, the automatic guided vehicle stops the mechanical parts such as the traveling motor and the sensor. Similarly, in the stations S1 to S9, the processor is shifted to the sleep mode, and while the data in the memory is maintained, the mechanical parts such as the motors and sensors of the conveyor are stopped. At the time of falling, whether or not the system computer 12 itself falls is optional. Then, at the time of fall, the rise / fall processing unit 28 instructs each automatic guided vehicle to fall,
After executing the assigned transfer command, the automatic guided vehicle travels to the predetermined home position to stop the mechanical part,
Move to sleep mode. Reference numeral 30 denotes a monitor.

At the time of start-up, the start-up / fall-down processing unit 28 is controlled by the automatic guided vehicle management unit 14 and the station management unit 16
Input a wake-up command to the automatic guided vehicle or station. As a result, the processor of the automatic guided vehicle or the station is woken up, and then the processor of the automatic guided vehicle or the station starts up the mechanical parts such as the motor and the sensor, and finishes the startup.

FIG. 3 shows the fall processing in the embodiment. A user, eg, an operator of the system computer 12,
When the user of the host computer instructs the fall from the host computer via the external input / output 20, the fall / fall processing unit 28 determines whether or not there is an unassigned transfer command from the transfer command management unit 22. Check and display the list on the monitor 30. Then, the monitor 30 displays a prompt for confirming whether to execute the fall. On the other hand, if the user stops falling, the fall processing is terminated.

When the user inputs the continuation of the fall, the rise / fall process is performed to determine whether to fall after executing the unassigned transfer command or to postpone the execution of the transfer command without being assigned until, for example, the next morning. The part 28 determines. If the execution of the unassigned transfer commands is postponed until the next morning, these commands are stacked and assigned to the automatic guided vehicles V1 to V4 when the next morning starts up. If the user selects to fall after executing the unassigned transfer command, the unassigned transfer command is assigned to the automatic guided vehicles V1 to V4 and executed.

The automatic guided vehicles V1 to V4 execute the transfer command assigned before the input of the fall command and the transfer command newly assigned for the fall process, and after ending these commands, return to the predetermined home. Move to position. In the embodiment, the number of home positions is larger than the number of automatic guided vehicles V1 to V4. For example, it is assumed that the vehicle travels to the nearest home position and stops. To detect the nearest home position 1, the route table held by the route table management unit 26 is used. In the route table, the required travel time between each position and the stations along the travel route 10 is described. The required travel time from the current position to each home position is obtained in the route table, and the approach to the nearest home position is performed. A request is made to the automatic guided vehicle management unit 14, and when the request is received, the vehicle travels to its home position, stops the mechanism unit, and shifts to the sleep mode.

If the automatic guided vehicle management unit 14 refuses entry into the requested home position, another home position is proposed and permission is requested. By doing so, the rise / fall processing unit 28 can know the position of the home position where each automatic guided vehicle has stopped through the automatic guided vehicle management unit 14.

In selecting the home position, the home position may be selected, for example, so that the most reasonable arrangement is made at the time of starting the next morning. For example, it is assumed that stations S1 to S5 are truck yard side stations along the traveling route 10 in FIG. Then, it is reasonable to make the automatic guided vehicle stand by near the stations S1 to S5 and stand up. By doing so, the automatic guided vehicles are arranged from the beginning in the next morning in an arrangement that is easy to respond to the transfer command, and the transfer efficiency at the time of startup is increased. When the number of automatic guided vehicles is almost equal to the number of home positions, the vehicle may simply travel to the nearest home position and stop.

When each automatic guided vehicle arrives at the home position, it stops the mechanical parts such as the sensor and the motor and shifts the processor itself to the sleep mode. Also, when data is held by dynamic RAM,
It is assumed that data in the dynamic RAM is maintained.
As a result, in each of the automatic guided vehicles V1 to V4, the processor stops other processing while waiting for a wake-up command, and stops all other operations while maintaining data in the memory.

Now, assuming that the automatic guided vehicles V1 to V4 are driven by a battery, it is necessary to completely discharge the battery about once a month and then charge the battery at low speed for about several hours. When such charging is referred to as maintenance charging, it is preferable to perform maintenance charging using a period from falling to rising. Therefore, the maintenance charging is performed, for example, one by one per day.
May be caused to travel to the charging point, and the maintenance charge may be performed while the other automatic guided vehicles are in the sleep mode.

FIG. 4 shows the processing at the time of startup. When the user instructs start-up, the start-up / fall-down processing unit 28 inputs a wake-up instruction to the automatic guided vehicle or station processor through the automatic guided vehicle management unit 14 or the station management unit 16. Thereby, the processor of the automatic guided vehicle or the station is activated, and the processor activates the motor, the sensor, and the like. Next, transport commands that have been unprocessed the previous day and that have arrived between the fall and the rise are stacked in the transport command management unit 22, and the allocation unit 24 assigns these to the unmanned transport vehicle. V1 to V4 are assigned, and the execution of the transfer command is started.

In the embodiment, the automatic guided vehicle can be started / falled only by the fall command or the rise command in the system computer 12, and the work of the rise / fall can be extremely simplified. In particular, since the automatic guided vehicle falls after executing the assigned transfer command, there is no trouble associated with the fall. Further, if the user is made to confirm the unassigned transport command before executing the fall command, the trouble can be further reduced. Although a specific example has been shown in the embodiment, the present invention is not limited to this, and the concept of the present invention is effective and can be arbitrarily changed as long as it is effectively equivalent.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration of an automatic guided vehicle system according to an embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a relationship between the automatic guided vehicle and the system computer in the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing processing at the time of fall in the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing processing at startup in the embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 10 traveling route 12 system computer 14 automatic guided vehicle management unit 16 station management unit 18 bus 20 external input / output 22 transfer command management unit 24 allocation unit 26 route table management unit 28 rise / fall processing unit 30 monitor S1 to S9 station V1 To V4 Unmanned carrier HP1 to HP15 Home position

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A system in which a number of automatic guided vehicles are managed by a control processor, wherein the control processor is provided with means for instructing each automatic guided vehicle to rise / fall. Unique guided vehicle system. 2. The automatic guided vehicle system according to claim 1, wherein the unmanned guided vehicle is configured to move to a predetermined home position after executing the assigned transfer instruction according to the fall command. 3. The control processor according to claim 2, wherein when a fall is input by the user, the control processor is configured to display the presence / absence of an unassigned transfer command and to request the user to confirm the fall command. The automatic guided vehicle system according to claim 1 or 2.