Japan Tobacco Inc.

Susumu Sugawa

Norikuni Miyaoka

Takao Murakami

An automatically guided vehicle includes a single-wheel unit including a first wheel, a paired-wheel unit including second and third wheels, a sensor for detecting a track, a control unit, etc. The first and second wheels are drive wheels that are rotated by motors, individually, while the third wheel is an idler wheel. The control unit executes an angle steering mode during a forward movement or the like and a speed difference steering mode during a sidewise or slantwise movement. In the angle steering mode, the steering angle of that wheel unit, out of the single- and paired-wheel units, which is situated on the rear side in the moving direction is fixed, and the steering angle of the wheel unit on the front side is controlled. In the speed difference steering mode, the guided vehicle is steered along the track by differentiating the respective rotational speeds of the first and second wheels with the respective steering angles of the individual wheels fixed. The control unit selects the speed difference steering mode when the steering angles are set at values such that the first and second wheels are situated on the opposite sides with respect to a line segment in the steering direction passing through the center of gravity of the guided vehicle.

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Susumu Sugawa