Japan Tobacco Inc.

Yukio Katou

Takehiro Suzuki

Susumu Shimada

A guidance system for an unmanned transporting vehicle which runs along a guide track. The guide track is composed of a belt-shaped light reflective material and laid out on a floor or the like. The unmanned transporting vehicle has two rows of photodetectors longitudinally arranged thereon forwardly of the front wheel. Since the two rows of the photodetectors are spaced apart from each other with a distance less than the width of the guide track, increasingly forwardly photodetectors begin failing to detecting the guide track earlier when the vehicle runs off the guide track. The vehicle is equipped with control means for controlling the steering mechansim of the vehicle in response to the detection count value such that the front wheel is swivelled to correct the vehicle deviation at a sufficiently early stage.

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Yukio Katou