Automated Guided Vehicles help transport the raw materials, semi-finished products, and finished products within a workplace. Initially, in any industry or a workplace, the materials are transported from one work station to another work station manually or by using a vehicle that the human operates. Because of the manual interaction, the time taken for transporting the materials is high, and because of the increased time, the production rate of an industry comes down. To increase the production rate and utilize the resources like labor, machine efficiently in an industry, Automated Guided Vehicles have been brought into existence. The Automated Guided Vehicles cannot be installed in the workplace as such. It needs a lot of planning and design. This is because the Automated Guided Vehicles installation is costlier, and once installed, it would be difficult to change them. Thus, before installing the Automated Guided Vehicles, the Automated Guided Vehicles’ installation and movement region should be pre-determined.
The layout of the company plays a vital role in the Automated Guided Vehicles system installation. Automated Guided Vehicles’ primary purpose is to reduce the travel time of the raw material or the workpiece. So the shortest route between the workstations has to be identified, and the track of the Automated Guided Vehicles should be set on that track so that movement is minimized. Also, the direction of the Automated Guided Vehicles should not clash with the other, and the design has to be done in such a way as to prevent the intersection of the Automated Guided Vehicles.
These vehicles are mostly battery-operated, and thus, the region of charging the battery has to be pre-determined. There are two ways of charging cars. The first one is charging in the workstations themselves, and this can be done when the vehicle stops in the station for loading and unloading. The second method is by charging in a separate region, and this means that once the vehicle runs out of charge, the Automated Guided Vehicle moves to the charging area and gets a charge. Either of these can be chosen based on the requirement of the company.
The movement of the Automated Guided Vehicles can be controlled in many ways. The easy way of controlling the action is by sensing the frequency by the sensor attached to the vehicle, and the frequency will be transmitted in the path by the wires. A slot can then be made to locate the course on Automated Guided Vehicles. The vehicle can be driven to move in that stipulated path by providing pin-like material that would follow the slot in the ground. The Automated Guided Vehicles path can be colored, and then a sensor can then be placed in the vehicle to make it move only in the way it is colored. Thus Automated Guided Vehicle system is a practical technical advancement that has reduced human involvement in material handling and thus increases the production rate.