Hitachi, Ltd.

Yoshiharu Tomioka

Yutaka Yoshida

Hideaki Furuno

An automatic guided vehicle and a method for drive control enable setting the vehicle alongside a conveyor with high accuracy in stopping at a task address. An automatic guided vehicle includes photoelectric sensors which detect the presence of an article by projecting light to a reflecting plate arranged on a conveyor and receiving signal light reflected from the reflecting plate and are arranged in one at each of the front and rear portions of the automatic guided vehicle, and a unit for detecting the distance between the vehicle and the conveyor. When both the photoelectric sensors arranged at the front and read portions of the side surface of the vehicle, a steering vehicle is steered toward the conveyor, and the automatic guided vehicle is driven toward the conveyor until the distance between the vehicle and the conveyor becomes within a predetermined distance.

Automatic guided vehicle and method for drive control of the same

An automatic guided vehicle and a method for drive control enable driving of the vehicle with a coordinate system, while using designation of a movement position by address. The automatic guided vehicle measures a surrounding state by a laser, performs matching between map data and measurement data obtained by the measuring to obtain the current position, and runs, following preset route data, based on the obtained current position. The vehicle includes a data memory that stores correspondence information between addresses of certain positions in a drive area where the vehicle runs and coordinates that are set in the drive area, and a processing section that, when a movement target position is designated by address from a host computer, transforms the designated address into coordinates, based on the correspondence information between addresses and coordinates, and drives the vehicle, following the route data to the coordinates corresponding to the address.

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Tokyo, Japan

Yoshiharu Tomioka