AGV is a kind of material handling equipment that is equipped with automatic guidance device (magnetic stripe navigation, laser navigation, etc.) so that can drive along the prescribed guidance route with safety protection and various material handling functions. It replaces forklifts and trailers and other traditional material handling equipment to achieve almost unmanned automatic operation and high efficiency output.
Til now, the AGV has been continuously optimized itself in its own technology and got perfected in its performance. Its guiding technology has progressed from the initial electromagnetic guidance to optical tape identification to laser reflective goniometric positioning and finally improved the flexibility of the unmanned trolley‘s driving path and the positioning accuracy. The working ability of its unmanned handling vehicle is already able to replace the ordinary manual handling, mechanical handling with more flexible, safe, energy-saving, stable and reliable using experience.
Applications of AGV
As a material handling equipment with automatic operating device, AGV is being more and more widely used in major fields.
1. Warehousing industry
In 1954, the world's first AGV was put into operation in the warehouse of Mercury Motor Freight Company in South Carolina, USA, for the automatic handling of goods’ inbound and outbound. Currently, there are almost 20,000 AGVs in various types being operated in 2,100 large and small warehouses around the world. In the development zone stereo warehouse of Haier Group, which was put into operation in 2000, 9 AGVs formed a flexible automatic handling system in the warehouse and successfully completed the task of handling 23,400 inbound and outbound goods and parts per day.
2. Manufacturing industry
AGVs are used in the production line of the manufacturing industry to complete the task of material handling efficiently, accurately and flexibly. Multiple AGVs can form a flexible logistics handling system with adjustable handling route to suit different production process requirements and to enable per production line to produce at least over 10 types of products one time. Thus it improved the flexibility of production and the competitiveness of enterprises. In 1974, in order to improve the flexibility of its transportation system, Sweden's Volvo Kalmar car assembly plant used automatic car assembly line by using AGVS as the carrier. The automatic assembly line consists of several AGVS that can load car bodies, which saved the assembly time by 20%, reduced assembly mistakes by 39% and reduced the investment payback time by 57%, After using of this automatic assembly line, the labor force also reduced by 5%.
Currently, AGVs are commonly used in the manufacturing and assembly lines of the world's major automotive plants, such as GM, Toyota, Chrysler, and Volkswagen. In recent years, as a basic handling equipment of CIMS, the application of AGV has penetrated into many industries such as machinery, home appliances production, microelectronics manufacturing industry and even cigarette manufacturing industry. The most widely used of AGV is the production and processing field.
3. Post office, library, port terminal and airport
The delivery of goods in the post office, library, port and airport has the characteristics of changeable work volume, strong dynamics, frequent adjustment of the workflow and a single process of handling operations. The AGV, which featured in the automation, intelligence and parallel operation, can meet the requirements of the above-mentioned occasions perfectly. AGVs were used at the Greater Stockholm Post Office in 1983, and at the Tama Post Office in Tokyo in 1988, and in China, it used at the Shanghai Postal Hub in 1990for handling postal products. In the Dutch port of Rotterdam, 50 AGVs called "yard tractors" perform the repetitive task of transporting containers from the ship's side to the warehouse the far away.
4. Tobacco, pharmaceutical, food, chemical
For these industry that has special requirements such as clean, safe, no emission pollution for handling operations process, such as tobacco, pharmaceutical, food, chemical, the application of AGV in these industries is also attached great importance. Laser-guided AGVs are used to complete the handling of pallets of goods in many domestic cigarette companies, such as Qingdao Yi Zhong Group, Yuxi Hongta Group, Honghe Cigarette Factory, Huaiyin Cigarette Factory.