Control Engineering

Paul Grayson

The World of AGVs
November 5, 2007

Let's go for a walk through the world of Automatic Guided Vehicle Systems (AGV). Our first stop along the way is one of the major repositories of information on the subject:

Material Handling Industry of America (MHIA)
8720 Red Oak Blvd., Suite 201
Charlotte, NC 28217-3992 USA
(704) 676-1190
FAX: (704) 676-1199
http://www.mhia.org/ 

While this is a very broad organization which covers the many aspects of materials handling and logistics, the have a Product Section sub-group devoted exclusively to AGV's:

Automatic Guided Vehicle Systems
Chair:    Claude Imbleau - Transbotics Corporation
Vice-Chair:    Mark Longacre - FMC Technologies  

There are several books, technical papers, and on-line introduction / training materials available to get a sense of where these machines are used and what can be done with them.  Usually it is only the workers in the plants that use these machines who know of their existance.  AGV's have been around for so long and work so well that they are never in the news.  

As this series progresses I hope to explore over 50 companies world wide that manufacture AGV's, explore the AGV's they build and discover what makes these robots tick.

Stay tuned, more to follow...

GO ROBOTS !

Posted by Paul Grayson on November 5, 2007 | Comments (0)