01. Background of AGV?

The 40s - early 60s, is the social production to batch, standardization, automation development of an important period, market competition, resource utilization, reduce labor intensity, improve product quality, to adapt to the needs of mass production and other needs of the power to make the production automation has become the mainstream trend into the stage of stand-alone automation, in this stage, a variety of stand-alone automated processing equipment appeared, and continue to expand the application and industrial automation to the Deep direction of development. AGV was produced in this period.

The first AGV (Automated Guided Vehicle) appeared in 1953, transforming the traditional "people looking for goods" mode into "goods to people" mode.

02. What is AGV?

AGV is a kind of modified tractor that can pull trailers along fixed lines. This is equipped with electromagnetic or optical and other automatic guidance devices, controlled by a computer, characterized by wheeled movement, with its own power or power conversion device, and can be automatically driven along the prescribed guidance path of the transport tool, generally with safety protection, moving loads and other functions.

In layman's terms, an AGV is a mobile robot that is used for transportation, it is a mover that carries goods from A to B. Therefore, most of the research on AGVs is also included in the field of mobile robots.

03. The rapid development of AGV?

China's first AGV application is in the automotive industry. 1980s, China began to pay attention to the development of the automotive industry scale issues, the 1990s, the development of the automotive industry in China has entered a new stage of joint ventures intensified, the State Council in July 1994 promulgated the implementation of the "automotive industry industrial policy", aimed at the use of foreign investment to achieve mass production, leading to the merger of domestic enterprises and conglomerate. In 2001, China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO). Returning to the world economic stage is a great opportunity for China's manufacturing industry, and indirectly promotes the development of domestic AGV.

Openness is a two-way street, on the one hand, China's manufacturing industry is facing a broader market, on the other hand, it is also facing more intense competition. Multiple factors contribute to the manufacturing industry must be towards the direction of scale, high efficiency, accordingly, the demand for automation equipment also began to increase, which also provides a basis for the application of AGV.

As a handling tool, the development of AGV is closely related to the development of the overall manufacturing industry. On the one hand, the demand for automated handling in industrial production is the direct driving force for the development of the industry, on the other hand, the mature industrial manufacturing system also provides technical support for the development of AGV.

04. Advantages of AGV?

I. Performance Advantages

1. Maintenance-free: For the lifetime of the battery system, lithium-ion batteries do not require water refilling or maintenance. Since the machine does not need to be taken offline for routine repairs and maintenance, there is less investment in accessories and components.

2. Energy Efficiency: Whether accelerating or turning in very narrow aisle environments, the AGVs are programmed to optimize energy during motion to extend battery life during work shifts.

3. Lightweight: At a fraction of the weight of traditional lead-acid battery systems, lithium-ion batteries reduce the burden and wear and tear on the AGV, paving the way for longer service life and energy consumption. In addition, lithium-ion batteries can be designed to meet the power requirements of AGVs with a weight that does not require lifting and lowering of auxiliary equipment. In some cases, batteries can be designed to be plug-and-play, reducing downtime for these AGVs.

4. Smarter charging: Typically, forklift operators charge batteries when the forklift is not in operation (e.g., during lunch breaks), which shortens the life of the battery. The battery management system in an AGV can be programmed to recharge at a specified depth of discharge, thanks to intelligent displays for lithium-ion batteries that provide visibility into battery life and health. With the ability to plan and execute charging around the ideal operating cycle of the AGV system, production managers can optimize battery life and save on replacement costs.

Second, the application advantages

1. AGV trolley instead of the original manual handling, significantly reducing the loss of human resources; and AGV trolley can be combined with a strong degree of automation, high level of intelligence, and because the AGV trolley is generally controlled by the computer, so its driving path can be flexibly changed according to different needs.

2. Advanced: AGV cart integrates light, machine, electricity and computer, and synthesizes the advanced theory and application technology in today's science and technology field. Strong guiding ability, high positioning accuracy, and good performance of auto-pilot operation. Reduce labor, reduce the loss of human operation; reduce personnel, save time, shorten the staffing; can be in and out of the place where the personnel is not convenient to enter the optimization of the production structure, the savings of manpower, material resources, financial resources.

3. Fast action: AGV trolleys are characterized by wheeled movement, compared with walking, crawling or other non-wheeled mobile robots have the advantages of fast action, high efficiency, simple structure, controllability, security and so on. Compared with the commonly used stacker cranes, monorail trolleys, conveyor belts, conveyor chains, conveyor rails and stationary robots in material delivery, the activity area of AGV does not need to lay rails, pedestal frames and other fixed installations, and is not subject to the limitations of sites, roads and space. Therefore, in the automated logistics system, it can most fully reflect its automaticity and flexibility, and realize efficient, economical and flexible unmanned production.AGV carts are widely used in factories and markets.

4. It is very simple to correspond to the adjustment when the production layout changes. Installation and debugging can be carried out at the production time without affecting the production, and the trajectory changes are flexible, and the layout can be changed at any time without affecting the production.

5. investment cycle 1~2 months, transformation cycle 1 day~1 week, compared with the logistics line equipment investment cycle is shortened by double, transformation cycle is shortened by more than 8 times. Cost and logistics line equipment compared with the new cost of a substantial reduction in operating costs for a very small amount of electricity does not exist in the logistics line equipment air transit waste phenomenon, the production layout changes in the transformation of the cost is very low, just change the track can be, the waste is zero.

05. Application prospects?

Through decades of development, AGV from magnetic navigation to laser, inertia, vision and other non-linear navigation methods, can meet the needs of different application scenarios, especially with the rapid development of e-commerce in recent years, two-dimensional code navigation AGV came out, supplemented by supporting WMS (Warehouse Management System) and RCS (Robot Control System) system, thus improving the large-scale warehousing in and out of the warehouse operation mode, greatly improving warehouse efficiency and reducing the labor intensity of operators, but also help enterprises to reduce costs and safety. WMS (Warehouse Management System) and RCS (Robot Control System) system, thus improving the large-scale warehousing in and out of the warehouse operation, greatly improving the warehousing efficiency, reducing the operator's labor intensity, but also conducive to enterprise cost reduction and improve safety.

Warehouses and manufacturing facilities will accelerate the upgrade of their material handling equipment to automated guided vehicles (AGVs):

1. from the product point of view, the traditional magnetic guide AGV to two-dimensional code, laser navigation, visual navigation and other navigation methods products are increasingly rich.

2. From the market application point of view, from the traditional automobile, tobacco and other industries, to 3C electronics, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, new energy photovoltaic, etc., the application of AGV is penetrating into the vast corners of the manufacturing industry.

On the way to the era of "Industry 4.0", under the background of the country's promotion of the transformation from "Made in China" to "Made in China", all kinds of enterprises are continuously innovating and developing in the fields of intelligent products, intelligent manufacturing, intelligent logistics and so on. In the "Industry 4.0" era, under the background of the transformation from "Made in China" to "China's Intelligent Manufacturing", all kinds of enterprises have been making innovations in the fields of intelligent products, intelligent manufacturing, intelligent logistics, etc., and the intelligent tools to meet all kinds of application scenarios have been constantly iterated and massively applied.

When 5G meets AGV, what will happen?

The high-frequency interaction among carts, materials and workers provides a stage for 5G to "show its power". Leader of Huaheng said that 5G network can provide diversified and high quality communication guarantee for AGV system. Compared with WIFI, 5G network has outstanding advantages in low latency, high-density and massive connection of factory application, reliability, and network mobility management, which will make AGV system more efficient.

Obviously, 5G's high-speed network allows AGV robots to organize and operate more efficiently, not only faster, but also smoother movements, so where exactly does intelligence fit in?

It turns out that 5G high reliability, low latency characteristics, can give AGV the ability to perceive the workers, the machine will "actively" and workers to maintain a safe distance, in the encounter with obstacles to autonomously avoid, so as to ensure the safety of man-machine cooperative work. In addition, with the accelerated pace of 5G To B application, a large number of related intelligent applications are also eager to come out. When 5G is applied to unmanned factories, synchronized operation of robots has gradually become a reality, and in some special scenarios in factories, workers can realize remote operation. That is to say, the operator only needs to sit on the control chair similar to the driver's cab and actually control it through the operating console, so that he can see the working environment of the AGV in the plant on the big screen through the 5G network, and synchronize and safely complete the intended work objectives.

Industrial Internet is a network connecting people, data and machines, and it is also the foundation for promoting the development of industrial intelligence. 5G has the characteristics of large broadband transmission speed, low latency, wide communication, and mature numerical value collection, etc., which can accelerate the high-level integration of informatization and industrialization, and become the booster for the development of industrial Internet.

Global 5G development continues to accelerate, thousands of industries are embracing 5G, 5G To B era has come! It is 5G's characteristics of ultra-large bandwidth, massive data, and ultra-low latency that make it the communication pipeline for industrial interconnection and accelerate the digital transformation and upgrading of various industries. 5G+Industrial Internet will make great contributions to the prosperous development of China's digital economy and bring into play the "Power of China" in the era of intelligentization.