Design and Development of Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV) System for Industries Based on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Technology

Automated guided vehicles (AGVs) are known for their routing flexibility advantage, hence they are frequently applied in automated warehouses, airports, Automated storage(AS) /Retrieval System(RS) to optimize the transportation tasks and, consequently, to reduce costs. Automated guided vehicle (AGV) is used widely in many industrial applications to transport materials. A short-travel material transport system is designed and controlled in this paper for a unit load AGV to transfer the material from Pick-up station rack to the Placing of material to finished goods rack aisle and back, including a both-side pick-and-place-material transfer mechanism and a programmable logic controller (PLC). AGV follows the path as per program in microprocessor and on-board sensors on the AGV, and locates itself according to the RFID tags beside the pick-up station. The RFID module detects the pick-up position of finished goods for the gripper and the placing the same in designated storage racks, and controls the horizontal and vertical movement of the load-transfer mechanism by using a geared motor and a chain and sprocket mechanism for 180 degree rotation of finished goods on the other side. The finished goods transfer experiments of our AGV testify the performance of this material transport system.