JP3374800B2 - Carrier system - Google Patents

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a system using an automated guided vehicle, and more particularly to a process for recovering from a failure of the automated guided vehicle from the time of carrying out a transport operation.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art When an abnormality occurs in a transportation vehicle that is executing a transportation instruction, it is necessary to manually inspect the transportation vehicle in which the abnormality has occurred, check the progress of the transportation instruction, and input it to the controller of the transportation vehicle system. there were. However, it is a burden on the operator to manually check the progress status of the transport command and input it to the system controller. On the other hand, if the progress of the transfer instruction is judged by the system controller based on the available data and the vehicle can be restored based on this, the process at the time of restarting the transfer operation becomes extremely easy.

[0003]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is a basic object of the present invention to judge the execution status of a transfer instruction of an automatic guided vehicle with a high degree of reliability without the need to manually check the transfer instruction, restore the guided vehicle, and issue an interrupted transfer instruction. It is to be able to restart (claims 1 and 2).
An additional object of the invention of claim 2 is to restart a transfer command that can be immediately restarted by another automated guided vehicle, and prevent a delay in processing of the transfer command.

[0004]

The transport vehicle system of the present invention assigns a transport command from the system controller to an automated guided vehicle,
In a system for performing a transfer operation, when recovering an unmanned transfer vehicle that is executing a transfer command from an abnormality, from the presence or absence of loading on the unmanned transfer vehicle and a record of the execution status of the transfer command,
It is characterized in that the system controller is provided with a judging means for judging how far the automatic guided vehicle has executed the carrying instruction, and the automatic guided vehicle is restored based on the judgment (claim 1).

Examples of the information that can be used for the judgment include a record of the execution status of the transfer instruction from the automatic guided vehicle to the system controller, a record of the execution status of the transfer instruction held by the automatic guided vehicle itself, and a load sensor of the automatic guided vehicle. Output, etc.
There are records of reports on rake and unload from the station to the system controller, the position of the automated guided vehicle, etc.

[0006]

This record may be stored in the system controller, stored in the automated guided vehicle, or stored in another element such as a station, but it is stored in the system controller or the station. What you are doing is highly reliable. The presence / absence of loading is determined by the output of a sensor (loading sensor) for detecting the presence / absence of a load held by the automated guided vehicle, the record of rake / unload of the station, or the position of the automated guided vehicle at the rake station. It can be judged from the position of the automated guided vehicle, such as when passing and before the unloading station.

More preferably, the transfer command is composed of two types of commands, a scooping command and an unloading command, and means for checking whether or not the automatic guided vehicle has carried out the scooping is provided. Before execution, the system controller is configured to reallocate the transportation command to another automated guided vehicle.

[0009]

According to the present invention, with regard to the recovery of the automatic guided vehicle which is executing the transfer instruction, the automatic guided vehicle is conveyed up to the unmanned guided vehicle based on the presence or absence of the load on the automatic guided vehicle and the record of the execution status of the transfer instruction. Determine if the command has been executed. And if there is a load, the first job after the recovery of the automated guided vehicle,
For example, it may be unloading the cargo. If there is no load, it may be determined from the record of the execution status of the transport instruction whether the scooping is performed before the unloading or the unloading is performed, and the process after the restoration may be determined.

For this reason, the state of the automatic guided vehicle can be accurately determined without manually checking how far the transfer instruction has been executed and without manually inputting the execution status of the transfer instruction into the system controller. It is possible to recover (claim 1).

According to the second aspect of the present invention, when an abnormality occurs before the load scoring is performed, a transfer command is assigned to another automated guided vehicle. Therefore, the transport command can be executed promptly.

[0012]

Embodiments FIGS. 1 to 4 show the recovery of an automatic guided vehicle in an abnormal condition in an embodiment. As shown in FIG. 1, it is assumed that the automated guided vehicle 4 travels along the transport path 2 from the rake station 6 to the unloading station 8. During this time,
FIG. 1 shows the relationship between the progress status of the transfer command and the recovery process after the occurrence of an abnormality. The transfer command assigned to the automatic guided vehicle 4 is to scoop the load at the scooping station 6 and unload it at the unloading station 8, and this command is transmitted from the system controller 10. In the transfer command, the rake station 6 is designated as the traveling destination, the first half of the rake command that specifies the transferred content as the rake, the traveling destination as the unloading station 8 and the transferred content as unloading. It consists of two unload commands in the latter half. Further, the automatic guided vehicle 4 shall report to the system controller 10 the completion of the rake at the rake station 6 and the completion of the unload at the unload station 8. Further, the transport command is transmitted from the upper controller (not shown) to the system controller 10, and the system controller 10 reports the fact to the upper controller after the completion of the transport command execution.

In order to restore the automatic guided vehicle 4, it is necessary to know the progress status of the assigned transportation command. As data related to this, for example, there is a record in the system controller 10, and specifically, a rake completion report when the rake is completed at the rake station 6 and a unloading completion when the unloading station 8 completes the unloading. There is a completion report. Although the execution status of the transfer command recorded by the automatic guided vehicle 4 can be used, it is not preferable to use the data of the abnormal automatic guided vehicle for recovery. However, even when recording the execution status of the transport command in the automatic guided vehicle 4, the control processing unit that manages the recording can be used as long as it is not related to the abnormality.
When records other than this are reported to the controller 10 when, for example, scoring or unloading from the stations 6 and 8, such reports can also be used as the progress status of the transport instruction. Further, the recording of the travel permission request from the unmanned guided vehicle 4 to the system controller 10 may be used so that the progress status of the carried command can be estimated from the current position of the unmanned guided vehicle 4.

The progress of the transfer command can be known from the detection result of the presence or absence of the article by the loading sensor mounted on the automatic guided vehicle 4. This data is data that directly indicates whether the rake has been completed or whether the unloading has been completed, and is extremely reliable. Whether or not the rake is completed and whether or not the unloading is completed can be determined based on the position data obtained by the automatic guided vehicle 4 or the like. For example, if the current position of the automatic guided vehicle 4 is on the upstream side of the rake station 6, the rake cannot be completed. Further, if it is at an intermediate position between the unloading station 6 and the unloading station 8, it should be after unloading and before unloading. If the vehicle is traveling beyond the unloading station 8, the unloading should have been completed.

The state of the automatic guided vehicle 4 at the time of interrupting the transfer work is as follows: before the scooping of the load during the execution of the scooping command, before the scooping of the load and during the execution of the unloading command and before the unloading and the unloading. There are three types. If the final unloading has been completed, the transport instruction in question has already been executed, and the system controller 10 may report that fact to the host controller. If the load scooping command is being executed but before the load scooping is being executed, the automatic guided vehicle 4
Has no goods. Therefore, in this case, the transfer instruction in question is transmitted from the unmanned guided vehicle 4 having an abnormality to another unmanned guided vehicle.
Allotment may be done without waiting for restoration. Therefore, it is necessary to re-execute the interrupted transfer work in the unmanned transfer vehicle 4 that has caused an abnormality at the time of recovery, after the unloading of the load and before the unloading.

In the embodiment, as data for judging the state of the automatic guided vehicle 4, a record of a report of completion of rake and unloading completion by the system controller 10 and an output of a load sensor mounted on the automatic guided vehicle 4 are used. . The system controller 10 determines that the load scooping command is being executed when an abnormality occurs in the automatic guided vehicle 4 before the load scooping completion report.
Also, if an abnormality occurs after the unloading completion report and before the unloading completion report, it is interpreted that the unloading command is being executed. Next, the presence or absence of an article is checked from the output of the loading sensor of the automatic guided vehicle 4 at the time when an abnormality occurs or at the time of restoration, and if there is no article during the execution of the load scooping command, it is interpreted as before the execution of the load scooping. To do. If there is an article whether the unloading command is being executed or the unloading command is being executed, it is determined that the unloading command is being executed. If there is no article before the unloading completion report, it is judged that the unloading is completed.

Along with these, the processing to the automatic guided vehicle 4 at the time of restoration is different. It is judged that the load scooping command is being executed,
Further, when the loading sensor detects that there is no article, the automatic guided vehicle 4 does not perform the scooping work at the scooping station 6, and the transport command may be reassigned to another automatic guided vehicle. When it is determined that there is an article in the automatic guided vehicle 4 and the unloading command is being executed, the unmanned guided vehicle 4 in question may be waited for recovery, and the unloading command may be retransmitted and executed.

FIG. 2 shows the transition of the state of the automatic guided vehicle 4 and the communication with the controller 10. Each vertical line in the figure shows the state of the automatic guided vehicle 4. From the left side of FIG. 2, the transfer command is normal (online), the transfer command is executing normally, and there is no transfer command when the recovery is waiting (offline) The four states of the transfer instruction are shown. In the figure, x indicates processing when an abnormality occurs, and o indicates processing when normal.

The transfer operation of the automatic guided vehicle 4 starts when a transfer command is input from the system controller 10.
Along with this, the state of the automatic guided vehicle 4 is normal, and the state is changed to during transportation. When the transfer operation is normally performed here, a rake completion report is transmitted to the system controller 10 after the rake at the rake station 6 is completed, and the unloading is completed after the unloading at the unloading station 8 is completed. You should be able to send a report. If an abnormality occurs before the load rake completion signal is reported, the load sensor checks whether there is a load, and if there is no article, the system controller 1
Report to 0. On the other hand, the system controller 10
Reallocates the transport command to another automated guided vehicle. On the other hand, when there is an article, the transportation command is being executed (actually, the unloading command is being executed), and the system waits for recovery. If an abnormality occurs after the load rake completion signal is reported, the presence / absence of a load is similarly checked, and if an article is present, the unload command is being executed and the system waits for recovery. If the article does not exist,
Since the transfer command has been completed, the system waits for restoration.

These controls will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 3 shows the branching of the processing when an abnormality occurs. When an abnormality occurs in the absence of a transport command, the simplest is the recovery wait, and the connector 1 waits for the recovery without the transport command. If there is a transport command, an abnormality occurs before the report of completion of the rake, and there is no article, the transport command is immediately reassigned from the connector 2 to another automated guided vehicle, so that there is no transport command and the system waits for recovery. If there is an article here, the connector 3 waits for recovery with a transfer command. Even if an abnormality occurs after the rake completion report and before the unloading completion report, the connector 3 similarly waits for recovery with the transfer command. If an error occurs after reporting the unloading completion, the completion of unloading is immediately reported to the host controller, and the system waits for recovery without a transfer command. Here, the completion of the unloading is reported to the host controller immediately, but it may be reported after the restoration.

FIG. 4 shows a branch of processing at the time of recovery from an abnormality. It should be noted that even for items that have already been checked in the processing of FIG. 3, in order to improve reliability, they should be checked again when the abnormality is restored. If there is no article in the state before the report of the completion of the picking up of the rake, and the fact that the article has been reported to the system controller 10, the connector 1 in FIG. If it has not been reported, move to connector 2 in FIG.
If there is an article in the automatic guided vehicle 4 before the report of completion of the rake or if there is an article in the automatic guided vehicle 4 after the report of the completion of the rake is received, the system controller 10 resends the unload command to the automatic guided vehicle 4. , Let this run. Further, when the report of completion of the rake is completed and there is no article, it is determined that the unloading is completed and the upper controller is notified to that effect, and the automatic guided vehicle 4 is restored without a transfer instruction.

Although the embodiment does not show any measures such as inspection at the time of restoration of the automatic guided vehicle, it is known per se.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a process along an transport path when an automated guided vehicle is abnormal in an embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a transition of a state of the automatic guided vehicle at the time of an abnormality in the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing processing when an abnormality occurs in the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a process when an abnormality is recovered in the embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

2 transport routes 4 Automated guided vehicles 6 cargo scooping station 8 unloading station 10 system controller

Continuation of front page (56) Reference JP-A-63-228904 (JP, A) JP-A-1-315805 (JP, A) JP-A-1-316807 (JP, A) JP-A-10-124145 (JP , A) JP 10-207542 (JP, A) JP 10-268937 (JP, A) JP 11-263403 (JP, A) JP 2000-153905 (JP, A) Actual development Sho 63 -92912 (JP, U) (58) Fields investigated (Int.Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G05D 1/02

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] 1. A system in which a system controller assigns a transfer instruction to an automatic guided vehicle to perform a transfer operation, and when recovering an automatic guided vehicle that is executing a transfer instruction from an abnormality, the load of the automatic guided vehicle is reduced. The system controller is provided with a judging means for judging how far the guided vehicle has executed the carrying command based on the presence or absence and the record of the execution status of the carrying command, and the unmanned guided vehicle is restored based on the judgment. A transport vehicle system characterized by. 2. The transport command is composed of two types of commands, a load scooping command and an unloading command, and means for checking whether or not the automatic guided vehicle has carried out the load scooping is provided to execute the load scooping. 2. In the previous case, the system controller of claim 1, wherein the system controller is configured to reallocate a transport command to another automated guided vehicle.