Abstract—With the advancements of robotic technologies, the industrial environments are adopting more and more aspects of automation to enhance product quality and accuracy and to reduce product cost. One of these aspects is the use of Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV) which is gaining importance in industrial logistics and transportation systems. Automated Guided Vehicles are the essential parts of all automated factories. They are the pre-programmed vehicles, normally used to carry raw materials, in-process parts and assembly and finished items from one location to the other location inside the plant. No human intervention is required for its normal functioning during task-execution stage. In this paper, automated guided vehicle is interfaced with Programmable logic control, which is a new concept in the field of automation and replacement of traditional electro-mechanical control system. In steel plants, a lot of transporting is required inside the plant to help in production, such as, steel coils are transported from one location to another. For this purpose automated guided vehicle systems are very useful. For such a system in steel plant four different software with its logic diagram using PLC has been developed and presented. The software deals with the movement of the vehicles in four different states (Raise, Reverse, Lower and Forward movement of the vehicle). The use of such system is applicable for any cyclic process in an industry, enhance the productivity of any industry taking care of safety measures and will also ensure good quality of product.

Index Terms—Automated guided vehicle, Programmable logic controller, Material handling system, Automation

Cite: Amit Kumar, "Development of an Automated Guided Vehicles in Industrial Environment," International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Research, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 377-391, January 2014.