Journal of Material Sciences & Engineering

Utilization of AGVs and Machines in FMS Environment

Abstract

Pandey R and Singh A

Automatic guided vehicle systems are now well known and recognized in automated material handling systems, FMS and also in container handling applications. It improves response time for material movement. It is an efficient, dependable and versatile material handling solution. AGVs consist of one or more computer-controlled wheel based load carriers that run on the plant floor without the need for a driver. These are designed to perform their operations without direct human guidance and are used in a wide variety of industrial applications. This paper presents a review on design and control of automated guided vehicle systems. The paper present a methodology to unify various lines of research related to AGVs and to suggest directions for future work for most key related issue i.e., including vehicle scheduling. Various types of scheduling problems are solved in different job shop environments, vehicle routing, guide-path design, vehicle dispatching. The prior objective of this paper is to extend previous research by examining the effects of scheduling rules and routing flexibility on the performance of a constrained and utilization of AGVs and machines.