Design and moving position estimation for free ranging automated guided vehicle with auxiliary wheel

Abstract

Automated Guided Vehicles are thought as a better way of improving material handling in terms of cost and speed of response. As free ranging AGVs are not constrained by fixed paths, they enable a dense and highly redundant network of paths to be specified with lower possibility of conflict. Therefore, the goal of this research is to develop a free ranging automated guided vehicle which can be successfully navigate through known structured environments. The design idea is that the vehicle should be simple and powerful, that means the components are commercially available items but still have sufficiently powerful functions. The developed FRAGV consists of two parts ; Tractive Navigation Module (TNM) and Trolley. This configuration has some advantages which are a various application, cost down and easy make-up or re-establishment for a various material handling because only TNM developed and any attachable trolley can be established. FRAGV is established other trolley and is changed a wheel base of trolley and the other parameters. Using sensitivity theory, the effects of the variations of the vehicle parameters on its dynamic behavior are studied. Among them, the yaw rate is the most sensitive state and the geometric-kinematic parameters are the most influential on the motion of the vehicle. But, vehicle motion is not almost affected by the wheel base of a trolley. This means that the tricycle configuration of a vehicle can be modeled by the bicycle model with the rear wheels collapsed into a single wheel. Originally, most existing vehicles are guided along physically specified paths, either by following a line painted on the floor, or more commonly by sensing a buried wire carrying an electrical signal. But, FRAGV is a vehicle designed to operate autonomously. The FRAGV must estimate its current position and heading angle. The dead reckoning method for the FRAGV``s navigation is one of the most frequently used methods. However, the performance of position est...