Automatic guided vehicles adapt and evolve
Summary
If you read Modern’s August cover story on Toll Group’s new 550,000-square-foot multi-channel distribution center in Sydney, Australia, you would have noticed something unfamiliar along with the multi-shuttle and goods-to-person picking stations that are common to piece-picking operations: the use of AGVs to optimize pallet movement from reserve storage to the shuttle induction area. “Everybody likes to harp on magnetic tape because a strip or bar in the floor doesn’t seem very high-tech, but it is a very powerful way to provide guidance in terms of ease of installation and low cost,” says Nick Ellens, autonomous vehicle development manager for Daifuku Jervis B. Webb. For those reasons, AGV manufacturers are now moving beyond tape and adopting navigation technologies such as simultaneous location and mapping (SLAM), light detection and ranging (LIDAR), lasers, cameras and natural feature or contour guidance. Keith Soderlund, vice president of sales for Creform, says his company continues to focus on magnetic guide paths for some simple reasons: It’s quick to install, reliable, comparatively low in cost, and, perhaps most importantly, easy and inexpensive to maintain. Carlos Millan, manager of business development in the Americas at Oceaneering AGV Systems, adds that operational aspects like safety improvements might be difficult to quantify, but are nonetheless an important part of ROI calculations.
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