Editorial from the May 2003 issue of Managing Automation

Automatic Guided Vehicles - Moving With Ease

by Stephanie Neil, MA Editorial Staff

Posted on Friday, November 03, 2006 3:10:08 PM                                     

Rehrig Pacific Co. (Los Angeles, CA), a manufacturer of plastic crates and pallets for the food and beverage and environmental industries, is on a mission to automate operations in and around its factory. While the company, which has seven plants nationwide, has a long way to go before it's considered a "lights out" operation, it is slowly testing the waters with robot technology deemed to be a safe bet.

Mauricio Cavalcante, a senior plant engineer at Rehrig's Lawrenceville, GA, plant, recently installed a transportation robot-otherwise known as an automatic (or automated) guided vehicle, or AGV-to move stacks of containers between the machine room and the warehouse. The forklift-style AGV that Cavalcante oversees, which went live in November, is from AGV Products Inc. (Charlotte, NC). The result? "We are saving money and the plant is much safer," he says.

Indeed, AGV systems have come a long way over the years, evolving from complex proprietary and inflexible wire-based systems to wireless systems that feature a broader range of movement and have easy-to-use graphical interfaces. The wireless AGVs use two different types of navigation technology: laser or inertial. The primary difference is that laser-guided vehicles operate based on line-of-sight, using reflectors on walls to determine position. Inertial, on the other hand, relies on an electronic gyroscope and magnets embedded in the floor for direction (see sidebar).

The choice of which wireless navigation technology to use often comes down to the application. Companies that have low height-lifting needs often standardize on inertial, because it is floor-based; if a forklift-style machine is required, laser is often the pick. Both work fine, say industry observers, but what's most notable are developments in mapping software and line-of-sight flexibility in mobile robots from the likes of AGV Products, Transbotics Corp. (Charlotte, NC), and Siemens Dematic AG (Nuremberg, Germany), to name a few. "If you use inertial or laser-based, it doesn't matter," says Don Holdenrid, director of sales and marketing at AGV Products. "But now it is easier for the end user to go into a system and change a path with a point and click."

Until now, manufacturers have had to rely heavily upon AGV vendors, because even the slightest change to the transportation path required the expensive engineering prowess of the supplier. In an attempt to change that equation, earlier this year AGV Products partnered with Nuova Fima (Invorio, Italy) to develop a new package for its laser-guided vehicles. It includes an on-board PC that can calculate complex routing configurations and Windows-based graphics that allow end users to change the program themselves. "We are focused on customer relationships and being able to provide a reliable system that the end user can control," says Holdenrid.

Similarly, Siemens Dematic created a Windows-based engineering tool called Q-CAN for its inertial AGVs. The tool enables a user to re-draw and re-define the system without needing to know the system's software or CAD application. An end user can map the system and create system logic using simple dialog boxes and drawing tools in a model that is downloaded to the AGV. "In an engineered system the only way to see the model before putting it in is to pay $10,000 for a computer simulation," says Garry Koff, AGV technology manager at Siemens Dematic's Material Handling Automation Division (Grand Rapids, MI). "Now they pay zero."

Siemens Dematic is counting on Q-CAN to expand the AGV market, which is very small. Only about 70 systems are sold per year in the market as a whole, notes Koff. Why? AGVs are pricey; they range between $30,000 to hundreds of thousands of dollars depending upon the size and configuration of the mobile robot and system software. But the real expense comes from having to call in the vendor for every minor tweak to the system software. Plus, AGVs have been perceived as too high-tech for many facilities. "If we make it less expensive, less complicated, and easier to understandthat lowers the anxiety level," Koff says.

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