JPS6056657A - Automatic travelling carrier vehicle - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To make it possible to effect travelling in every direction accurately and easily, by providing a pair of wheels which may be controlled in rotational direction and rotational speed, and air cushions for preventing falling down of a vehicular body at a lower portion of the vehicular body. CONSTITUTION:Air cushions 2A and 2B are provided at front and rear positions of a lower portion of a vehicular body 1. Wheel devices 3A and 3B are provided at both side portions of a central portion of the vehicular body 1. The wheel devices 3A and 3B include driving wheels 5, and a rotational direction and a rotational speed of the driving wheels 5 are controlled by drive motors 6. The air cushions 2A and 2B act to inject compression air to a floor surface thereby to support the vehicular body and prevent falling down of the vehicular body.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Technical Field of the Invention] This invention mainly relates to a system that transports various products and other objects to their destinations by moving them automatically or by remote control in various production factories. Related to self-driving guided vehicles.

(Technical background of the invention and problems thereof) In recent years, in various production factories, etc., certain routes or various routes have been used for moving various products etc. due to automation of production lines, especially guidance equipment such as rails. There has been a strong demand for automated guided vehicles that can freely travel automatically or remotely without the use of vehicles.

However, although making a guided vehicle automatically travel within a limited space such as a factory may seem simple, there are many difficult problems. In other words, for example, due to the equipment in the factory, it is required not only to travel around large curves, but also to run around in order to suddenly change direction at right angles, or to travel sideways at right angles.

By the way, many self-driving guided vehicles with structures that meet these requirements have already been proposed, but until now the guided vehicles have been four-wheeled vehicles, with drive wheels and idle wheels made of casters, etc. At first glance, this caster wheel seems to be convenient because it automatically steers the wheel in the direction in which it is trying to move, but the orientation of the traction wheel (drive wheel) and towed wheel (i. The difference is 180 degrees, so you can easily apply driving force to the caster wheels and adjust the traction wheel.
Also, it cannot be used as a towed wheel. However, caster wheels are designed to offset the caster rotating wheel and the center of the wheel that is in contact with the ground to reduce the caster effect by 10%, so when a caster wheel is pulled in a certain direction, the caster rotating wheel is centered around the grounding point of the wheel. tends to rotate using the value of the deviation amount as a radius and start rotating from -C, so it is very easy to judge what the traveling trajectory of the vehicle itself will be, which is required as an automatic traveling guided vehicle. 1j
There are many disadvantages such as the accuracy of repeating the trajectory becomes unclear.

In addition, although this is good for maneuverability in a four-wheeled vehicle where one rigid body is supported by four wheels, if a complex structure of support springs is not provided for each wheel, the running surface will be uneven. In one case, one of the back wheels of the vehicle floated off the ground, and especially if that floating wheel was the drive wheel, the trajectory of the vehicle was greatly disturbed, and the trajectory had to be corrected. There was a very inconvenient problem.

[Purpose of the invention]

This invention was made in view of the above-mentioned circumstances, and although it has a simple structure, it can freely and automatically drive around factories, etc., various driving modes can be executed accurately, and it can overcome obstacles such as considerable unevenness of the driving road surface. The purpose of the present invention is to provide an extremely high-performance automatic traveling conveyance vehicle that can run stably without disrupting its travel trajectory even when the vehicle is moving.

[Summary of the invention]

The automatic traveling conveyance vehicle of the present invention is an automatic traveling conveyance vehicle that transports goods by traveling automatically or by remote control, etc., and has a pair of wheels at the bottom of the vehicle body that can control the rotation drive direction and rotation speed of the wheels. The configuration includes a one-wheel device and an air cushion that blows compressed air underneath and prevents the vehicle from falling over without contacting the road surface.The vehicle moves with two wheel devices, and these two Since the wheel system alone would cause the vehicle to fall over, a near cushion was installed to prevent the wheel from falling over, and at the same time, the air cushion blows out compressed air downwards while keeping the two wheels in contact with the road surface. The device is designed to allow proper running with as little adverse effect as possible on the running of the device.

In other words, the self-driving guided vehicle of this invention has a feature of the air cushion that is capable of negative IH up to a certain load depending on the air pressure and amount of air supplied, but it cannot bear a load above a certain level, so the vehicle When the U5 is loaded with no goods to be transported, and when the U5 is fully loaded, the load is supported by a pair of wheel devices so that the vehicle can travel sufficiently. As long as the vehicle body does not tilt to one side beyond the air cushion's load bearing limit due to tilted loading of conveyed items, the air cushion acts as a non-directional support arm, and the air cushion's rubber bellows handles some irregularities in the running road surface. This allows the driver to smoothly overcome the obstacles and ensure proper and stable driving.

In addition, since the wheel device is only placed in two locations on the vehicle body,
By controlling the rotational direction and rotational speed of the drive wheels of these two wheel devices, infinite combinations of vehicle running directions are possible, including straight-line, single-curve, right-angle, and cornering, allowing for a variety of driving routes. You can choose freely without any difficulty.

Further, the automatic traveling guided vehicle of the present invention can be applied with various guidance devices such as guidance by laying a guide wire, radio guidance, and self-inertia guidance, and various configurations of wheel devices can be freely adopted. It is something.

[Embodiments of the invention]

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

First of all, Fig. 1 is a plan view showing a schematic configuration of the automatic traveling guided vehicle, Fig. 2 is a side view of the same, Fig. 3 is a sectional view of the air cushion section at the lower part of the vehicle body, and Fig. 4 shows various examples of traveling movement. FIG.

In Figs. 1 to 3, reference numeral 1 in the figure is the body of an automatic traveling guided vehicle, and the lower part of this body 1 indicates the front and rear positions of the body 1, that is, the center front side and the rear side of the body 1. Air cushion 2Δ is placed on each side.

2B is provided. Further, wheel devices 3A and 3B are provided on the left and right sides of the vehicle body 1, respectively.

The pair of wheel devices 3A and 3B rotatably support a drive wheel 5 on the lower surface of the 777 body 1 via a wheel support 4, and can control the rotation direction and rotation speed of the drive wheel 5. A drive motor 6 incorporating a speed reduction device and a brake
In this configuration, each of the drive wheels 5.5 is independently controlled to rotate in forward and reverse directions by the wheel devices 3A and 3B.
: Sea urchin-C is here. Since there are already many known examples of such wheel devices, further detailed explanation of the internal structure 41 will be omitted.

The pair of air cushions 2A and 2B are fixedly attached to the lower surface of the vehicle body 1 by installing a blower 9 and a rubber bellows 10 via a base 8, and as shown in FIG. 8 A bottom plate 8a having an opening in the center of the lower end has a receiving plate 11 with a side opening 11a on the upper surface.
- It is fixed by a stopper, and the above-mentioned method l is fixed on the upper side of this receiving plate 11.
111j19 is installed with its discharge port in alignment with the ventilation port 11a, and the rose 1 is attached to the rubber.
0 is an annular one with a substantially C-shaped cross section, and its upper end peripheral edge is hermetically clamped and fixed to the lower surface of the bottom plate 8a by a bellows holder 12 with bolts, and its lower end peripheral edge protrudes from the center of the lower surface of the receiving plate 11. A flange-shaped seat plate 14 at the lower end of the cylindrical support 13 provided
It is airtightly clamped and fixed to the lower surface by a bellows holder 15 with bolts and removed. Compressed air is introduced into the rubber bellows 10 by the air blowing from the blower 9, and the rose 10 expands into the rubber. The vehicle body 1 is supported so as not to fall over while being blown out from the road surface 16 in a non-contact state with a slight gap between the vehicle body 1 and the road surface 16. Note that the receiving plate 11 is designed to be separate from the bottom plate 8a of the J base 8 to facilitate assembly of the bomb 1"-10, but its bellows structure and assembly In other words, the receiving plate 11 and the bottom plate 8a may be integrated.

Further, a cylindrical collar 17 is attached to the lower surface of the seat plate 14 of the support body 13 and protrudes further downward.
A highly wear-resistant sliding plate 18 is attached to the lower surface of the abutting plate 17a at the lower end of the stopper 17, and normally the road surface 16
However, if the vehicle body 1 tilts beyond the load bearing limit of the air cushion for some reason, it will come into contact with the road surface 16 to prevent further tilting and overturning.

In addition, this type of automatic traveling conveyance vehicle is equipped with various equipment depending on the purpose of each use, and in this embodiment, as shown in FIG. A robot 19 is automatically mounted on the transport platform 1a of the vehicle body 1 from a predetermined location, and vice versa. It is also possible to directly assemble the transported article 20 to a target machine tool (not shown).

Furthermore, since there are many types of objects to be transported of this type, it goes without saying that the robot 19 can be replaced or combined with other mechanisms for loading and unloading objects.

The operation of the automatic traveling vehicle having the above configuration will now be explained. Control of the vehicle body 1's running stop, direction of travel, speed, etc. is performed by controlling the forward and reverse rotation drive direction and rotation speed (
This is done by controlling the left and right drive wheels 5, 5 (including making a difference in the rotational speed of each other) by independent drive motors 6 using a generally known method, and this allows the vehicle body 1 to follow a planned course. It runs automatically. In other words, it can be controlled to follow a guide line laid out on a preset course, or the position can be automatically determined in relation to a preset target, or it can be run in the direction of an absolute coordinate axis such as a shy entrance. By calculating and determining the target based on distance, etc., the vehicle is guided, and the steering, driving, and braking are controlled so that the vehicle travels on the planned course.

At this time, the air cushions 2A and 2B perform an air blowing operation of 1 m 9 to continue sending compressed air into each rubber bellows 10. To this -C rubber rose 10 has a cross section of C
Since it has a letter-shaped shape and its outer diameter is larger than the part facing the road surface 1G, it expands with compressed air and pushes the road surface 16 in particular. Compressed air is blown out from the plurality of small holes IQa of the rubber bellows 10 to form an air pressure chamber between the rubber bellows 10 and the road surface 16 on the lower side, and this air pressure increases the area of the lower side of the rubber bellows 10. It comes to support J8 Km, which corresponds to the Haku multiplied by J8. In addition, the pressurized air flows out to the outer circumferential side while creating a slight gap between the rubber bellows 10 and the road surface 16, so that the rubber bellows 10 is maintained 15 in a non-contact state with the road surface 16. . At this time, the pressure retention of the feeder 11119 and the size of the rubber bellows 10 are appropriately selected so that the air cushions 2A and 2B float the rubber bellows 10 at a substantially constant height above the road surface 16 within a certain appropriate range. so that it can handle the load of

The appropriate load range is Air Cushion 2A
, 2B's lifting force against the weight of the vehicle body 1 causes the wheel device 3 to
It is determined so that either A or 3B does not rise from the road surface 16, or even if it does not rise, it does not spin or skid and cannot perform its function as a driving wheel. By appropriate selection, J can be placed on the left and right positions of the vehicle body 1.
The driving wheels 5, 5 of the pair of wheel devices 3A, 3B support the necessary load of the vehicle body 1, and the remaining eccentric load of the vehicle body is supported by the pair of air cushions 2A, 2B disposed at the front and rear positions. The unevenness of the road surface 16 is absorbed and the vehicle body 1 is held extremely stably. It should be noted that all the loads such as the transported goods 20 placed on the vehicle body 1 are carried by the pair of wheel devices 3A.

3B, and the pair of air cushions 2A, 2B always bear a constant load while maintaining the rubber bellows 10 at a constant flying height from the road surface regardless of the magnitude of the load. For example, if the wheel devices 3△, 313 have a certain spring constant with respect to the vehicle body 1, the air cushions 2A, 2B The effective height of 'the air cushions 2A, 2B and the wheel device 3A,
313 Which load sharing is the spring constant and rubber bellows 'I
(O) 7 It will change depending on the height and load carrying capacity.

Therefore, the load of the air cushions 2A, 2B can be appropriately set in consideration of the above-mentioned matters, and an appropriate load can be distributed between the wheel devices 3A, 3B and the air cushions 2A, 2B, respectively. By doing so, the rubber bellows 10 of the air cushions 2A, 213 can, in principle, stand still and move while receiving a load without contacting the road surface 16. With this, the conventional caster r11
For example, when trying to go in reverse while receiving a load like a wheel, the wheel can instantaneously turn in a stable direction.
The problem is that the running course of the vehicle body 1 is disturbed and the vehicle moves in an abnormal direction due to unnecessary cornering force that occurs until the wheels turn in a stable direction after falling into an unstable state at f+. The non-contact air cushions 2A and 2B as described above can completely avoid the above problem and have no adverse effect on the running direction 1j, and the vehicle body 1 is able to control the driving wheels 5, 5 of the pair of wheel devices 3A, 3B. By controlling the rotational drive direction and rotational speed in step 5, it is possible to travel on an accurate course. Furthermore, the wheel devices 3A and 3B are connected to the vehicle body 1.
Since they are placed on the left and right positions of the
By controlling each drive rotation speed, all kinds of traveling can be performed easily.

Here, various running patterns will be explained with reference to FIG. First, in FIG. 4(a), the left and right wheel devices 3A.

By rotating both driving wheels 5, 5 of 3B in the same direction at the same speed, the vehicle body 1 moves straight forward or backward in the direction of the arrow shown in the vertical direction (A indicates the front, and the mouth indicates the rear). Next, in FIG. 4(b), the drive wheels 5 of the left and right wheel devices 3A and 3B are shown.
, 5 are driven at different rotational speeds from each other, and at the time indicated by the arrow 2 in the figure, the rotation speed 1 is centered on the point where the ratio of the rotational speed of the driving wheels 5.5 and the ratio of the distance to the fixed point is equal. Turn in the rotational direction or counterclockwise direction. (In this case, the rotational driving direction of both driving wheels 5, 5 is the opposite of the rotational direction of driving wheels 5, 5 of A and 3B from the turning center indicated by point C above to each driving wheel 5, 5. 4(d), the vehicle body 1 makes a rotational movement in the J direction indicated by the arrows T and H about the center point between the left and right drive wheels 5.5.Furthermore, in FIG. In a state where the vehicle body 1 has turned 90 degrees by means of a gentle turn as shown in Fig. 4(b) or a sharp turn as shown in Fig. 4(C), that is, the axle of the drive wheels 5° In this case, if the rotation direction and speed of both drive wheels 5, 5 are the same,
The vehicle body 1 travels in the direction of the arrow shown in the figure, to the right of the screen. In this way, it is possible to freely move on any driving course by combining various types of driving.

In addition, the air cushions 2A and 2B not only accurately follow all possible movements of the vehicle body 1, but also have the function of preventing the vehicle body 1 from tilting and falling without causing any disturbance or other adverse effects on the vehicle running. will work reliably.

Next, the running of the vehicle body 1 is stopped, and the air action 2A,
If the air blowing operation of the air blower 9 of 2B is stopped, the insertion of compressed air into each rubber bellows 10 will be stopped, and the floating ability as an air cushion will be lost. a certain stopper
17 The contact plate 17a at the lower end touches the road surface 16 via the sliding plate 18.
The vehicle body 1 is able to stably stand still in a slightly tilted state.

In addition, even if the blower 9 has trouble for some reason and stops blowing while the vehicle body 1 is running, the contact plate 17a at the lower end of the stopper 17 is designed to allow the vehicle to continue running to some extent. The moving plate 18 is made of a material with high wear resistance and a low coefficient of friction.

In addition, the ability to get over abnormal protrusions on the road surface 16 is comparable to that of the drive wheels 5, 5 of the wheel devices 3A, 3B (general 11) wheels, and the air cushions 2A, 2B have the ability to overcome abnormal protrusions on the road surface 16.
It is determined by the range of the gap between 8 and the road surface 16. For this reason, the shape of the lower part of the stopper 1 was devised, and instead of the stopper, caster wheels (not shown) that are in a floating state during normal driving were installed in order to improve the ability to get over abnormal protrusions. Even so, it's good.

5 and 6 show other different embodiments of the present invention. First, in the case of FIG. 5, the wheel device 3A of the above-mentioned type 1ij is installed at the left and right positions, which are biased towards the rear side of the lower part of the vehicle body 1.
, 3B are arranged, and a large air cushion 2C is provided at the front center position opposite to the air cushion 2C.
, 313, and small-sized near cushions 2D and 2E are arranged at left and right positions near the front side opposite thereto.

In the case of such a configuration, air cushion 2C or 2D,
Since the air cushion 2E takes charge of the load m on the front side of the vehicle body 1 in order to bear one point of three-point support for the wheel devices 3A and 3B, the air cushion 2C, 2D, and 2E will float even under the maximum load. It is necessary to have the ability to hold the air cushion, and the floating height of the air cushion changes depending on the load, which affects the leveling of the vehicle body 1 to some extent. Functionally, it will be possible to achieve exactly the same effect.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As described above, the present invention provides an automatic traveling conveyance vehicle that travels under automatic or remote control or the like to transport goods. The system includes a device and an air cushion that blows compressed air underneath and prevents the vehicle from falling over without contacting the road surface, making it possible to take advantage of the completely non-directional effect of the air cushion on the road surface. As a result, it becomes possible to accurately and easily drive the vehicle in all directions using a pair of wheel devices, resulting in an optimal structure for an automatic traveling guided vehicle that is required to perform extremely complex vehicle operations.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a schematic plan view, not showing one embodiment of the present invention, and FIG.
The figure is a side view of the same, Figure 3 is a sectional view of the air cushion part in the same practical example, and Figures 4 (a) to (d) are explanatory diagrams showing various running patterns of the vehicle body in the same example. , FIG. 5, and FIG. 6 are schematic plan views showing different embodiments of the present invention. 1... Vehicle body 2A, 28.2G, 2D, 2E... Air cushion 3A, 3B... Wheel device 4... Wheel support body 5... Driving wheel 6... Drive gear 8
...Installation is on the base 8a...Bottom (Le 9...Blower j
a 10...Rubber bellows '10a...Small hole 1
1... Receiving plate 11a... Ventilation port 12゜15...
Bellows presser 13... Support tube 14... J'13 plate 16... Road surface 17... Stopper 17a...
Hitting plate 18...Sliding plate 19...Carrying c+ 1
0 pot 20... Goods to be transported. Applicant's agent Patent attorney Ni Suzue Figure 1 B Figure 2 Figure 3 (a) A 4 1 and b) Figure 5 Figure 6

Claims (3)

[Claims] (1) J3 is an automatic transport vehicle that transports goods by automatic or remote control, and has a pair of wheels at the bottom of the vehicle body that can control the direction of rotation of the wheels and the rotation of 3Ii degrees. An automatic traveling conveyance vehicle comprising: a device; and an air cushion which prevents a single vehicle from falling over 11η without contacting the road surface while blowing out compressed air on the lower side. (2) The pair of wheel devices are arranged at the left and right positions of the lower part of the vehicle body near a medium flame, and the F1-cushions are arranged in one row at the front and rear of the vehicle body. Automatic traveling conveyance flj described in item 1. (3) The pair of wheel devices are arranged near one side of the lower part of the vehicle body, front, rear, left, or right, and an air cushion is provided near the other opposite side. The self-driving guided vehicle described in item 1.