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AUTOMATED GUIDED
VEHICLES
by Tom Carroll
Imagine that you’re in a dark
warehouse that stretches for a
thousand feet in each direction.
Except for a few lights behind exit
signs and a few glowing computer
monitors scattered about, the only
lights that you see are flashing red
lights that are zipping around in all
directions. You hear the whine of
motors starting and stopping and an
occasional beep when the whine of
a motor stops right behind you.
Startled, you turn around only to
see a flat cart loaded with bins of
clothing. What is more startling is that
there is no driver, at least no human
driver. No, there isn’t even a robot
driver sitting on a seat on the cart;
the cart is the robot. It beeps at you.
You step aside and it goes on its
merry way again.
The Earliest AGVs
Automated Guided Vehicles or
or a warehouse.” Wikipedia also
states, the term can apply to any
automated vehicle that carries
materials and supplies in any
environment, such as the HelpMate
robot used in hospitals. Though the
HelpMate hospital service robot
shown in Figure 1 is no longer
produced, this innovative robot
designed by Joe Engelberger and
built by Pyxis was one of the first
AGVs to work beside humans.
AGVs carry items on their
platforms. They tug or push payloads.
They can be configured as fork lifts
to carry one ton rolls of photographic
paper or very small objects. The
AGV in Figure 2 is carrying a 50 foot
shipping container.
AGVs can be totally autonomous
or be operated by remote control.
They can operate side by side with
humans in a hospital or office
environment carrying meal trays,
medical supplies, or mail. They
can operate deep in mines or dark
AGVs never seem to make the
headlines in news stories these days,
as they go quietly about their business
on factory and warehouse floors
around the world. Their more
flamboyant cousins — the industrial
robots and the large walking
humanoid robots — usually take
front and center.
Mobile load-carrying robots first
appeared in 1954 when a driverless
electric cart made by Barrett
Electronics Corporation began pulling
loads around a South Carolina grocery
warehouse. This first AGV followed a
magnetic path created by a wire
buried in the floor. When industrial
robots began their slow implementation into factories around the world in
the early 80s, AGVs began to be used
in conjunction with these fixed-in-place
machines to move materials from one
manufacturing or robotic work cell
to another.
FIGURE 1.
With so many acronyms for
different types of robotic systems, just
what is an AGV? If you think
about it, the term ‘automated
guided vehicle’ can cover any
type of mobile robot that has
automatic guidance. This
includes most of the robots that
experimenters build. However,
for discussion’s sake, we’ll confine
the term AGV to the description
found in Wikipedia: “The
automated or automatic guided
vehicle is a mobile robot used
most often in industrial
applications to move materials
around a manufacturing facility
FIGURE 2.
76 SERVO 06.2009
