Daifuku Co., Ltd.

Yoshinari Wada

Ryuya Murakami

Tomotaka Kinugawa

Keisuke Shiroishi

Kenji Tamura

Hiroshi Sakata

An article transport facility includes a first rail and a second rail. The second rail is spaced upward relative to the first rail, and intersects the first rail in a view in an up-down direction. The transport vehicle includes a vehicle body disposed between the first rail and the second rail in the up-down direction, a first traveling unit that causes the vehicle body to travel along a first direction, and a second traveling unit that causes the vehicle body to travel along a second direction.

Article transport facility

An article transport vehicle of this disclosure includes a fall restricting device. A vehicle body of the article transport vehicle includes a first cover section, a second cover section, and a cover connecting section. The fall restricting device includes a pair of fall restricting members and a driving mechanism. The pair of fall restricting members each include a supported section, a pair of vertical extension sections, and a lower connecting section. The driving mechanism drives the pair of fall restricting members to move between a restricting position and a release position. At the restricting position, the pair of vertical extension sections overlap a stored article in a second direction view, and furthermore the lower connecting section overlaps the stored article in a vertical view. At the release position, the lower connecting section does not overlap the stored article in the vertical view.

Article transport vehicle

An overhead transport vehicle performs a first transfer operation of holding an article placed on a loading pedestal of a transport origin, and a second transfer operation of placing the article onto a loading pedestal of a transport destination. A control device causes a shooting device to obtain a first shot image of the upper face of the article placed on the loading pedestal of the transport origin, and adjusts the relative positional relationship between the holding portion and the article placed on the loading pedestal of the transport origin based on the first shot image and first reference image data, and causes the shooting device to obtain a second shot image of the upper face of the loading pedestal of the transport destination, and adjusts the relative positional relationship between the holding portion and the loading pedestal of the transport destination based on the second shot image and second reference image data.

An upper shelf section of a holding rack includes an upper placement section fixed to a ceiling. A lower shelf section of the holding rack includes: a fixed support fixed to the upper shelf section, a lower placement section supported by the fixed support so as to be capable of advancing and retreating relative to a travel rail as viewed in a vertical direction; and a drive transmission mechanism drivable by a rack drive mechanism of a transport vehicle to cause the lower placement section to advance and retreat. The lower placement section is positioned directly below the upper placement section while in a retreated position, and is positioned directly below the travel rail while in an advanced position. The lower placement section is below a lower end of the transport vehicle.

A transfer device includes a holder that holds an article, and a self-propelled cart that supports the holder and travels. The self-propelled cart includes a wheel and a wheel drive source that drives the wheel, and the self-propelled cart travels along a traveling path provided on an elevation unit and a delivery device. The delivery device includes a positioning portion that positions the elevation unit while the elevation unit is at a transfer height, and a delivery-side guide that guides travel of the self-propelled cart along the traveling path. The elevation unit includes an elevation-side guide that guides travel of the self-propelled cart along the traveling path, and the elevation-side guide is arranged so as to be continuous with the delivery-side guide while the elevation unit is positioned by the positioning portion.

Each transport vehicle is configured to perform a vehicle following control if an inter-vehicle distance to the transport vehicle traveling ahead becomes less than or equal to a predetermined distance, the vehicle following control being a control in which traveling state of the own transport vehicle is controlled in order to maintain constant the inter-vehicle distance to the transport vehicle traveling ahead based on traveling state information of the transport vehicle traveling ahead. Each transport vehicle is configured to terminate the vehicle following control if preparation of the own transport vehicle for arrival at a destination is initiated while the vehicle following control is being performed or if a travel direction of the own transport vehicle at a branching location is determined to be different from a travel direction of the transport vehicle traveling ahead at the branching location while the vehicle following control is being performed.

Transport system

A ceiling guided vehicle includes a travel driving portion, an elevation driving portion, and a control portion that controls the operation of the travel driving portion and the elevation driving portion. An auxiliary unit that supplies, to the ceiling guided vehicle, one or both of power for driving the travel driving portion and the elevation driving portion and a control signal is provided so as to be attachable to and removable from the ceiling guided vehicle. The auxiliary unit includes a supported portion configured to be supported in a suspended state on a supporting portion provided on the ceiling guided vehicle; and an abutment portion configured to abut against the ceiling guided vehicle in a plurality of abutment areas disposed at different positions in plan view, and the abutment areas are provided at positions lower than the supporting portion in a vertical direction.

Object is to provide a travel facility in which a travel member, that became incapable of traveling due to a cause other than a power supply failure, can be moved to another location on a travel path. A second travel member, provided separately from the first travel member, includes an external signal generating portion for generating an external travel control signal to be sent to a first travel actuator and a connecting portion which can transmit the external travel control signal. The first travel member includes a first connecting portion which can receive the external travel control signal and can transmit the external control signal to the first travel actuator. A connecting member for receiving and transmitting the external travel control signal is removably connected to, and between, the first connecting portion and the second connecting portion.

Travel facility

The linearly moving and rotating device includes a support portion that supports an operated member integrally provided with the article support portion, for rotation about the movable axis and for movement along the first direction, and a linearly movable member which is moved along the first direction by the actuator. The operated member is connected to the linearly movable member in a portion spaced apart from the movable axis as seen along a direction along the movable axis. The linearly moving and rotating device includes an operating state switching portion which can be switched to a linearly moving state for restricting rotation of the operated member about the movable axis and for allowing movement of the operated member along the first direction, and to a rotating state for allowing rotation of the operated member about the movable axis and for restricting movement of the operated member along the first direction.

Linearly moving and rotating device switchable between linearly moving and rotating

When transporting an article between a transport target location that belongs to, located along, or associated with, a first travel path in which actuating electricity is supplied to transport vehicles and a transport target location that belongs to, located along, or associated with, a second travel path in which actuating electricity is not supplied to transport vehicles, a managing member manages traveling of a first transport vehicle to cause the first transport vehicle to travel only along a first travel path and manages traveling of a second transport vehicle to cause the second transport vehicle to travel along both a first travel path and a second travel path.

An article transport vehicle includes a transport vehicle main body, a first travel portion, a second travel portion, and power-receiving portions for receiving driving electric power without contact from one or more electricity supply lines. The first travel portion rotatably supports a transport vehicle main body. The second travel portion rotatably supports the transport vehicle main body. The power-receiving portions include a first power-receiving portion which is configured to be rotated integrally with the first travel portion, and a second power-receiving portion which is configured to be rotated integrally with the second travel portion.

An overhead carrier for transporting an article on a ceiling of an article conveying system can travel on curves with various curvatures so as to increase the layout flexibility of traveling rails. Driving wheels that move an overhead carrier along traveling rails and non-driving wheels that are rotated separately from the driving wheels are provided on the right and left of the transport direction of the overhead carrier. In a linear section, the driving wheels on the right and left sides are supported by the traveling rails. In a curved section, the inner non-driving wheel is supported by the inner traveling rail while the outer driving wheel is supported by the outer traveling rail.

Article conveying system and overhead carrier

Each of a pair of support members includes a lightweight-article support portion that is inserted into an insertion space of a lightweight article and supports a support-target portion of the lightweight article from below and a heavyweight-article support portion that is inserted into an insertion space of a heavyweight article and supports a support-target portion of the heavyweight article from below. The heavyweight-article support portion is formed to be thick in the vertical direction compared with the lightweight-article support portion. The lightweight-article support portion is provided at a position that is located in the insertion space of the heavyweight article when the heavyweight-article support portion is inserted into the insertion space of the heavyweight article, and formed integrally with the heavyweight-article support portion.

Article supporting device

An article transport vehicle is provided which can prevent a lid from falling from the container gripped by grip portions and which can prevent increase in the size of the device. A lid fall prevention member is provided which can be moved between a near position in which the lid fall prevention member is close to the lid on the side the outer surface of the lid is located, to prevent the lid from falling, and an away position in which the lid fall prevention member is farther away from the lid to allow the lid to be detached and attached. An operatively connecting mechanism is also provided which moves the lid fall prevention member from the near position to the away position as a pair of the grip portions are moved from gripping positions to grip release positions by grip actuator portion, and which moves the lid fall prevention member from the away position to the near position as the pair of the grip portions are moved from the grip release positions to the gripping positions by the grip actuator portion.

Article transport vehicle with linkage mechanism

A ceiling transport vehicle in which articles may be transferred precisely while allowing its travel portion to travel smoothly along a set travel path is provided. The ceiling transport vehicle has a pair of guiding bodies which guide the travel portion along a set travel path by contacting each of right and left lateral sides of a guide rail with a pair of contacting members that are supported by the travel portion such that the contacting members can be moved away from each other and moved toward each other in a lateral width direction. The ceiling transport vehicle also has a switching portion for moving each of the pair of contacting members away from each other and toward each other to switch between a holding state and a holding release state.

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Shiga, Japan

Yoshinari Wada