A micro‐AGV for flexible manufacturing in small enterprises

The extensive development of automated guided vehicles (AGVs) over the last two decades is outlined, and a vehicle for use in small assembly processes such as electronic equipment manufacturing is described. This micro‐AGV is intended for bench‐top use, and is guided by wall sensors between workstations. Traction is provided by two stepper motors, which receive their signals through appropriate drivers from an on‐board microcontroller. This device controls the vehicle in accordance with data stored in a non‐volatile memory, representing the node locations of the workstations in the path. Graphs of speed and electricity consumption against stepper pulse length are presented, and the issue of battery life is discussed. Circuitry for the stepper driver and the microcontroller interface is given. Specific applications of the vehicle in the electronics manufacturing industry are discussed, and a design of processing environment is presented.