DESIGN OF AUTOMATIC GUIDED VEHICLES

Abstract

In manufacturing units, material spends more time in a shop moving than being machined, which means that there is more time wasted thereby adding to the cost of the product. Thus, material handling methods used are important in improving the profitability of a manufacturing organization. The major automated material handling systems that are generally used in advanced manufacturing are automated guided vehicles (AGV) or mobile robots, storage and retrieval systems (AS/RS) The primary objective of this project is to design a fully autonomous “line following AGV” capable of following a pre-designed path marked on a surface. The microcontroller EM78P156ELP receives the input from a series of infrared sensors and from these inputs determines if the AGV should continue forward or the direction of the AGV should be changed. Accordingly the speed of the motors is controlled and thus the mobile robot is made to follow the predetermined path. In order for the AGV to turn, one wheel is stopped while the opposite wheel continues to turn A’C’ program is developed which could ideally control the path of the AGV. This source code is compiled and the resulting hex file is placed into the microcontroller.