Proposal for an AGV communication system using a cellbot framework

Abstract

Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS) are considered one of the key strategic systems when coping with current manufacturing environments. FMS uses various technologies integrated in a system, including Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs). An AGV which serves an FMS environment usually has four components: the vehicles (uni or multiloaded), the load/deposit stations, the orientation and traffic control system and the communication system. In this research, we specified and implemented a communication system for AGVs intended as a resource for FMS. We used a cellbot framework (MIT App Inventor Beta) in order to make the infrastructure easily available for researchers. The methodology used was based on evolutionary and incremental prototyping. The main contribution of this research is to supply the communication system as an aid in establishing a development basis for orientation, traffic control and even hardware in the loop simulations where online communication with the AGV is required.